Latest / The Hannah Hammond Show / The Tax-Free Wealth Hack Nobody Teaches | Greg Herlean
Transcript
- 0:00The number one expense is taxes. You and I can invest in the
- 0:03exact same things for the next 20 years, same exact returns.
- 0:07I would have somewhere between 20 and probably 35% more money
- 0:11than you just by using a vehicle that the IRS has approved.
- 0:16Most advisors, as all of us know, is open up this account,
- 0:19put a percentage of your paycheck in it, and then we're
- 0:22just going to buy this index fund and you just leave it there
- 0:24until you're, you know, 65 your. Advisor probably isn't telling
- 0:28you this is another option. How successful were you, how
- 0:31much did you lose and how did you mentally deal with that
- 0:34that? Was probably worth on paper, 10
- 0:37to $15 million of 30. What happened when you were in
- 0:42that situation in 2008? I was a guarantor on $25 million
- 0:48of bank loans, and I had three kids that were, you know, 6 and
- 0:53under. No forthcoming.
- 0:54I was not only at zero, I was at -25 million.
- 0:58It didn't tell my wife at the time what we were going through.
- 1:03How did you get through that? Welcome back to the Hannah
- 1:06Hammond show. I'm here today with Greg
- 1:08Hurline, founder and CEO of Horizon Trust Company.
- 1:12And I love what you do and I can't wait to dive into it today
- 1:14because I just explored the amazingness of self-directed
- 1:18Iras. And I always thought, you know,
- 1:20your traditional 4-O1K was a scam and a fraud and you know,
- 1:23rich dad, poor dad, Robert Kiyosaki principal type things.
- 1:26But there's a lot of really cool things you can do with the
- 1:28self-directed IRA. But beyond that, you are just an
- 1:30amazing entrepreneur and leader, and you've been through all of
- 1:35the testaments of time when it comes to starting companies,
- 1:38raising capital, going big, having massive success, losing
- 1:42it all, having a family, having amazing personal health and
- 1:46fitness and all of those things. And we all know as entrepreneurs
- 1:49how hard it is to balance every single one of those things and
- 1:52to actually execute and do it successfully and actually
- 1:56rebuild after losing everything. So excited for having you on the
- 1:59show today and thanks for coming.
- 2:00On yeah thanks for having me I when you said all that that's a
- 2:03mouthful so yeah I feel like I have lived all of that maybe
- 2:06twice so yeah thanks thanks a lot for having me of.
- 2:09Course and we know each other through one of the masterminds
- 2:12that we're in called boardroom from Kent cloth there, which is
- 2:15an awesome group and we we actually shared in a breakout
- 2:19room together and I got to learn more about your business and you
- 2:22learn more about mine. But I've read a little bit about
- 2:25your background and sounds like you you were you born in a
- 2:28military family like I want to kind of dive in.
- 2:30I was like diving into the roots of an entrepreneur and what
- 2:33drives us to become these crazy incessant learners and growers
- 2:37and risk takers in our lives. So like what was your childhood
- 2:40like and how did some of that instability and moving around
- 2:43all the time and then ultimately dropping out of college.
- 2:45I walk us through that story of how you ended up from there to
- 2:49now, where you're at now running this company that manages $1.4
- 2:54billion in people's self-directed IRA funds.
- 2:59Sure. Yeah, Look, I started in the
- 3:00middle and my dad was in the military, moved around a lot.
- 3:03And then after he left the military, I think I was around
- 3:0610 or 12 years old and he still moved around.
- 3:08And so we are moving to, from state to state after three or
- 3:11four years. And there was like a common
- 3:14denominator. I, I really got to learn how to
- 3:16meet new people and new friendships and new schools all
- 3:19the time. And I, you know, as I met new
- 3:23friends, I got to meet also parents.
- 3:25And I don't know what it was. I don't know if it was the
- 3:28religion, if it was the family dynamic, but I would just take
- 3:32bits and pieces of what I would see and kind of what I wanted.
- 3:35I didn't know at the time what I was doing.
- 3:38Like it's easy to reflect back now and look and say, OK, This
- 3:41is why I did it. But I can tell you I'll never
- 3:44forget. You know, my dad would make most
- 3:46of my games, but my dad was gone before I woke up and he worked
- 3:51until at least dinner time every day, 6:00 or 7:00.
- 3:55And so he worked like 12 hour days and I didn't see him, you
- 3:59know, very often And, and so a good dad.
- 4:03So he wasn't, he just he taught me how to work like and he was
- 4:06very militant. I mean, he called it her lean
- 4:08exercises on the refrigerator. You know, we rotate our chores
- 4:11every single week. And so I learned a lot from
- 4:13those kind of fundamental things, but I didn't learn a lot
- 4:16about money. And I also didn't really know
- 4:20what was possible until I went to friends houses.
- 4:23So I'd go to friends houses and they'd have the unlimited
- 4:26pantries. I never had a soda or a
- 4:29appetizer growing up. That was extra ever, ever until
- 4:33I was like, you know, married in my 20s.
- 4:36So I bought my first soda or appetizer.
- 4:39But that being said, I'd go to friends houses and I would see
- 4:42their dad's home. And I remember I'll never forget
- 4:46coming home. This is right before I dropped
- 4:47out of college actually. And it was a Wednesday at 2:00
- 4:52and I went by this friend's house and this new friend's
- 4:55house and her dad was home on a 2:00 washing his boat.
- 4:59And I only see this on TV. But I was like in college
- 5:03studying business, couldn't really get into my degree
- 5:06because I had a couple B's and C's.
- 5:08And apparently you can't get into the thing you want to study
- 5:10with AB or C, which makes no sense to me still today.
- 5:14And I see this guy and he's washing his boat.
- 5:16And I was like, whatever the F he's doing, I'm going to do it.
- 5:21And he was a nice guy. And I actually, after I met him,
- 5:24I called him the next day and I was like, hey, I met you at your
- 5:26house. Your daughter introduced me to
- 5:28you. I don't know what you do, but I
- 5:30would like to come work for you. And.
- 5:33And he said yes, which is crazy. Yeah.
- 5:36And I dropped out of college and I wanted to, I have a boat on a
- 5:42Wednesday at 2:00, washing it outside and have a family.
- 5:46And that was my wife. Thankfully he wasn't selling
- 5:47drugs or anything illegal, but he was selling a terrible thing,
- 5:50which was life insurance, but I didn't know that at the time.
- 5:54And so but but like that got me kind of into the whole, you
- 5:57know, estate planning and life insurance.
- 5:59I just got to Start learning like the real world stuff and
- 6:03that at the I was 22 years old and that's when I kind of began
- 6:08my career into actually real estate went from life insurance
- 6:11first, but into real estate. So anyways, that's the that's
- 6:13the Cliff notes. As much as I can give you as far
- 6:16as how I got into it and why I got it was really truly I wanted
- 6:19to be home with my kids and I wanted to live this life that I
- 6:24saw others live that I wanted as well.
- 6:26Did your parents give you push back when you wanted to drop out
- 6:29of college? Not at all, not not at all.
- 6:32Not for a second, probably because they're the ones that
- 6:34introduced me to the guy washing the boat at 2:00, but not for
- 6:38that reason. They introduced me to the guy's
- 6:40daughter. They wanted me like date the
- 6:42daughter. And so I think, you know, that's
- 6:44how it kind of came together. But I never saw her, you know, I
- 6:46never dated her again, not that there was anything wrong.
- 6:48It just didn't work out. But I just took interest in the
- 6:52lifestyle. And so my parents never had any
- 6:54issues. My parents didn't know like they
- 6:56didn't my mom. And, and this kind of goes part
- 6:59of my story too, is my mom was like typical American, maybe I
- 7:04shouldn't say typical, but like most of America, my dad worked,
- 7:08my mom took care of the kids and she would get the statements of
- 7:12all of the retirement accounts, all like 2 of them every month.
- 7:16And what she would do when she got those statements is she
- 7:19would look if the account went up or down and then she would
- 7:23file it paper file it, right? This, that's how it worked back
- 7:26then. She didn't know what it was
- 7:28invested in. She didn't know.
- 7:30She didn't know really how much my dad was putting into it, had
- 7:34no clear vision on how to, like, truly retire.
- 7:37And no one really cared about her retirement account.
- 7:39And then she'd file it away and she felt like she was, you know,
- 7:42doing good because she kept it. And that's how most of America
- 7:45does, you know, they do this HAPHAP is the most probably
- 7:49invested stock in the universe, which is hope and pray.
- 7:53This is hope and pray that they put away their money, that
- 7:56everything go as planned. And when they go to retire, it's
- 7:58there. That's what my mom's plan was.
- 8:00And it wasn't working. And I saw it.
- 8:02I saw their lifestyle. I saw where it was going as far
- 8:05as how much work is happening. And I just, I learned so much
- 8:09from them, so many good things from them, but there's only so
- 8:13much they could teach me. Right.
- 8:15And so because life insurance is a pretty high income, you know,
- 8:18most people, a lot of people that are in life insurance, they
- 8:20make a lot of money. So what was your experience like
- 8:22when you were working in life insurance and you just said it's
- 8:25you think it's a bad thing. So clearly you're not a believer
- 8:27in it. But did did you come to that
- 8:30fruition while you were experiencing working with that
- 8:33guy all? Right.
- 8:33Well, let me let me preface it because my son sells life
- 8:36insurance. Oh, OK.
- 8:37And he is top ten in the nation and he's 23 years old.
- 8:41So he, he, I am not a hater of life insurance, but I did not
- 8:44like selling life insurance, in particular annuities, which is
- 8:48what this gentleman sold was annuities.
- 8:51So he was going out and selling annuities to individuals.
- 8:54And those are investments, not as much in life insurance as far
- 8:57as like the actual death benefit life insurance, but more in
- 9:00annuities. And every time I would, I would
- 9:03go out in a meeting, I was taking the notes, I would do
- 9:05whatever he asked me to do. And they talk about investments
- 9:09and every time I was sitting down listening to him, the guy
- 9:13was my mentor. Talked to these investors, all
- 9:17of them had success in the portfolio because of real
- 9:20estate. That was the common denominator.
- 9:22I learned it within before 12 months, within 8 to 12 months, I
- 9:26was like, this keeps coming up. The passion, the returns, the
- 9:29excitement, the understanding, always real estate.
- 9:33The guy was with, you know, he sells some annuities.
- 9:35People put a portion of money in annuities, which is not going to
- 9:37say a bad thing, but it was boring.
- 9:39It's not fun. It was like to me that would did
- 9:41not get me any excited. But I noticed that people talked
- 9:45about real estate and they wanted to invest in real estate.
- 9:49And so that's where I took note. When I was 23 years old, I knew
- 9:54that I wanted to be in the real estate world somehow, someway,
- 9:58and that's that's when I took hold of real estate.
- 9:59And so you made a transition at that time from life insurance to
- 10:02real estate, and you started by flipping houses.
- 10:04I started flipping houses after one year being with this mentor.
- 10:07I thought I knew everything. So I left and I started my own
- 10:10company. And so I found my first deal and
- 10:13I flipped it and how I found the money, which is really, I'll
- 10:18share that because that's how I got where I am today.
- 10:21But I had no money. Like I said, my family had no
- 10:23money. Banks wouldn't lend me money.
- 10:25But I was around for a year with this gentleman learning how I
- 10:28raised worked. I was learning where how banks
- 10:30worked, where money was at. And I was just a sponge taking
- 10:34it all in. Like, OK.
- 10:36And I just thought because I was a sponge I could do it on my
- 10:38own. And I did.
- 10:40And you know, I definitely had some bumps and bruises.
- 10:43But my first deal ever in my life when I left was I bought a
- 10:48$60,000 condo in Las Vegas and flipped it 90 days.
- 10:53And I found an individual that would lend me all of the money
- 10:58with their IRA. And so their IRA lent me all the
- 11:02money I needed. And after 90 days they got back
- 11:0412,000 return on their IRA and putting up like 6070 thousand
- 11:08and I got back 4000. It was a 7525 split.
- 11:11That's what I negotiated at the time.
- 11:13But I was like 4 grand in three months.
- 11:16I was 23. I mean, this was 24 years ago.
- 11:19Like this is great. And so I learned so much on just
- 11:24that one deal alone. And that's where I began.
- 11:26I flipped many homes over 600 homes, which I know is not like
- 11:31earth shattering. People do that, you know, often
- 11:32now. But it, you know, 24 years ago,
- 11:35like, you know, with a different, you know, Internet,
- 11:37no social media really. And it was a lot of work, but I
- 11:41had a lot of success. That's how I got into real
- 11:44estate is because it was, well, partly because I had to.
- 11:46I need to make money. And I left this guy and I sold
- 11:48like a few term life insurance policies, you know, that pays
- 11:52the bills for a month. So how'd you get some?
- 11:54Because you know, a lot of people who watch the show or
- 11:56want to get into real estate investing, you know, maybe
- 11:58they're always afraid of the down payment, right?
- 12:00And nowadays, depending on where you live, down payments can be a
- 12:03little bit more higher than they used to be back in the day.
- 12:06So you said that this person invested with his IRA funds.
- 12:10And so obviously that was a big advantage for him.
- 12:12But how did you get him to trust you?
- 12:14It's like a young person, it's your very first flip.
- 12:17Was this, you know, a family friend?
- 12:19I kind of want to dive into the importance of when we taught
- 12:21capital raising, which you became an expert at because you
- 12:23went on to raise over a billion dollars of, of capital
- 12:27throughout your career. But like, what's that a most
- 12:30important thing when somebody's just getting started in capital
- 12:33raising to build that trust and report?
- 12:34Like how did you build that trust and rapport and show them
- 12:37when you didn't have a track record that you are going to be
- 12:39a good steward of their money and actually make a return for
- 12:41them? Because like Warren Buffett
- 12:43says, rule #1 is don't lose money, right?
- 12:45And so that's what, where I even struggle with this is when I'm
- 12:48looking to partner with certain funds, you know, operators and
- 12:51things like that. If it's their first fund and
- 12:53they don't have a track record, I'm like, well, how do I trust
- 12:55you? And how do I, how can I let
- 12:58other people know to trust you too, if you don't yet have that
- 13:00track record? So how did you go about that?
- 13:02Oh, Hannah, that's, I think that that's such an important
- 13:05question because I feel like now it's so easy.
- 13:08My answer today is so different than when it was 23 years ago.
- 13:11And I get really frustrated, frankly.
- 13:13I'm on all these panels. I'm with celebrities that get up
- 13:15before or after me or we go to dinner and they're like, oh, you
- 13:18know, you find the right deal, money comes.
- 13:21And I think that's bullshit, especially if you're just
- 13:24starting. I mean, you can have the best
- 13:26deal in the world. And I don't believe money just
- 13:29comes unless you've been doing it for a minute now.
- 13:33Now they've done it for, you know, 2025 years and you've got
- 13:36a track. You know, when you have a track
- 13:38record, it's so much easier. But but I wanted to say that
- 13:41because I feel like it's unfair to so many individuals when I
- 13:45see people thinking they're going to go out and just crush
- 13:47it in real estate, but are brand new and they think they're going
- 13:50to find the best deal. That's great.
- 13:53But I always say lead with finding money because I believe
- 13:58when you have money, you have opportunity to negotiate into
- 14:01deals and find deals, especially when you're new in the business.
- 14:05And so I don't have like a probably like the textbook
- 14:11answer for you on what should an individual do?
- 14:13I can just tell you that at that time when I was 2223 years old,
- 14:18I did the things that I, I, I see people doing today.
- 14:23I just worked harder and met more people.
- 14:26I literally was going out face to face in events in, in the
- 14:29audience, right? I was not speaking by any means,
- 14:32but I was out meeting people, finding what they're looking
- 14:35for, building relationships and people just liked and trust me.
- 14:38And that's where it begins, like it or not, you know, you could
- 14:42be fooled by someone that likes it.
- 14:43You know, that that that you like and trust.
- 14:46But I was just going out and I just as pounding the pavement,
- 14:48building relationships, sharing what I was going to do.
- 14:51I was manifesting. We were talking about
- 14:52manifesting before this. I literally was manifesting.
- 14:54Didn't know I was doing that before.
- 14:55But that's what I was doing. And people believed in my energy
- 14:58and believed in, in, in me. And I would just share.
- 15:02And I was like, look, I mean, my first deal, I told you I offered
- 15:0575% of the profits today. Most people are like, Oh my
- 15:08gosh, that's too much. You gave him too much.
- 15:11If I had to go back and do it all over again, I'd give him
- 15:13100% of profits just to prove to them that I was the shit.
- 15:18And, and that's what I did. I proved it.
- 15:20And then once I did the next deal, he gave me it again.
- 15:24But this, this, this individual who I met who, who funded my
- 15:28first deal and invested with me till the day he died, he, you
- 15:31know, he had like $2,000,000 and he let me 60, he let me $60,000.
- 15:36So it wasn't like a ton. I wasn't asking for him to like
- 15:38fund an apartment complex. And I think that's where people
- 15:41go wrong too. They're like, oh, hey, I live in
- 15:43Scottsdale. And so I want to like flip real
- 15:45estate in Scottsdale in Orange County.
- 15:47Maybe not, but that's probably not where you should start.
- 15:50My son who's 23, he lives in Orange County and he has not
- 15:53done one deal in real estate in Orange County.
- 15:56He's done 25 or 26 deals in the Midwest, South Carolina and
- 16:01Florida and Alabama. Why?
- 16:03Because that's where he's got now a team and he can afford a
- 16:06$15,000 down payment, right. And so, so my long answer to you
- 16:11were is, is you need to outwork your competitors and find the
- 16:16money. It's, it's in rooms all over the
- 16:18place, which is why I'm in the business I'm in today.
- 16:21I never knew that there was trillions, literally a trillions
- 16:24of dollars in Iras with people invested in the stock market who
- 16:29are frustrated at the market. So if you just start opening
- 16:31your mouth and sharing and finding out people you'll,
- 16:34you'll start building relationships, you will find the
- 16:36money. Most people are lazy.
- 16:38They think they're going to raise it on social media that
- 16:40they're going to go to one event and raise the money, outwork it,
- 16:44hustle. I mean, you know, this, this is
- 16:46what you've done. This is, I mean, you're, I, I
- 16:48did some research on you as well before, you know, before you
- 16:50were in our room and where we were in San Diego River, you
- 16:53outworked everybody else in and you built relationships.
- 16:58And I feel like that is the number one number.
- 17:00Those are the two top things that I give advice to my kids
- 17:04and to people that ask me. There's no special recipe of you
- 17:07do a webinar and a podcast and go to a mastermind.
- 17:11You're going to have no, I mean, you got to do that times 5 or 10
- 17:14and you'll and you'll and you'll find the money.
- 17:16You will find the money if you wanted.
- 17:17Yeah, day after day after day. And you never, never burn a
- 17:21bridge. And just like you said, there's,
- 17:23there's trillions of dollars out there that has to be working,
- 17:25right? If your buddy's not making
- 17:27babies and making more money, then it's dying and you're
- 17:30losing it and it's just losing all of its value.
- 17:32And so people are out there with the need.
- 17:34And I had to get over that hurdle myself because I was
- 17:37like, felt like I was asking for something, right?
- 17:40It's like, oh, I feel bad asking for an investment or something,
- 17:43but then it's no, I'm bringing them value.
- 17:45I'm out here working my butt off and taking on the risk of the
- 17:49loan and like all these different things in the
- 17:51operations and the blood. And not my shift in you.
- 17:53You'd probably raise more money that way.
- 17:55Right, yeah, because it's hey, this is what I'm doing.
- 17:57I'd love to have you a part of it, a part of it if you're
- 18:00aligned and it's going to be win, win, all these things.
- 18:02But it's really we're doing you a a service and we're helping
- 18:05each other. It's a symbiotic relationship.
- 18:07But really, I mean, if you can, if somebody that has money to
- 18:10invest can find an amazing operator that is insanely
- 18:13trustworthy and that can produce returns and that's going to do
- 18:16whatever it takes to be successful.
- 18:18I mean, that's a gold mine for the investor, right?
- 18:21Because they don't have to go out and do that and they can
- 18:23trust it just like that one did with you.
- 18:25And I like that you said that you would have given him 100%
- 18:27because so many people want interest on their money before
- 18:31they put money in the bank. And you have to put money in the
- 18:34bank to get interest on it. And so I think it's just that
- 18:38givers mindset is when you're trying to build yourself and
- 18:41your reputation and be successful in anything that you
- 18:44do and scale and build these relationships like you have to
- 18:48earn trust because people do business with who they like and
- 18:50The Who they trust. And if you're just what's in it
- 18:53for me, which is how most people are like they go, you know, a
- 18:56lot of these rooms, it's a room full of takers and it's not a
- 18:59room full of givers. And that's why a lot of these
- 19:01fundraising, you know, masterminds like these family
- 19:04office groups or whatever, which are great in theory, but it's a
- 19:08bunch of people looking to take and it's not a bunch of people
- 19:11looking to give. And so they're not usually very
- 19:13successful. And usually the people with the
- 19:15money don't show up because they're like, this is just a
- 19:18bunch of takers that that want something from me.
- 19:20And so, yeah, it's just so important to build that trust
- 19:22over time and show them like, like I actually met somebody at
- 19:26another mastermind that I'm a part of.
- 19:27I'm in quite a handful, but another one I called Commercial
- 19:31Academy. I met him and he runs his own
- 19:33family office and he's in Newport Beach and all these
- 19:36things and he called me, you know, we just had a one hour
- 19:39conversation while I was there. First time we'd ever met.
- 19:41And he called me a couple of two days ago and he's like, hey, I
- 19:44want to invest with you. You know what, what are you
- 19:47working on some of your deals? Like all those.
- 19:48He's like, I, I want to bet on you.
- 19:50Like you, you're the jockey that I want to bet on because I just,
- 19:54I could just tell like I can trust you.
- 19:56You're in it to win it. Like you have utmost integrity
- 19:59and whatever's going on in the world.
- 20:01Like you're going to try to find a way to make sure that it gets
- 20:03done. And I just know that I can bet
- 20:04on you. And so like that.
- 20:05And that was from a one hour conversation of him getting and
- 20:09I'm sure he went off and did his own due diligence and research
- 20:11and things like that. But just showing people that
- 20:14like you are not in it to just for your own selfish needs and
- 20:17that you just want to take all this money.
- 20:19And because it's happened so many times, like a lot of these,
- 20:21you know, I don't want to say men does how bad, but most
- 20:25capital raisers have been men in general.
- 20:27And there's been a lot of Ponzi schemes that some people have
- 20:30done, which has tarnished the whole thing of capital raising.
- 20:33But yeah, that that trust is so important.
- 20:36And it takes time to build. You can't just do a webinar and
- 20:39have everybody trust you right away.
- 20:41And that's why content has been so good is because you build a
- 20:44relationship like day after day, you know, I spend thousands and
- 20:47thousands of dollars a month and hours and hours of my time and
- 20:50sharing all the things that I'm doing that I've paid, you know,
- 20:54hundreds of probably millions for at this point to learn this
- 20:57education knowledge and just giving that away for free.
- 21:00But that builds trust. Like that's putting in the
- 21:02giving bank account. And then when you put so many
- 21:06deposits into the giving bank account, the goodwill bank
- 21:09account, then when you do at some point ask for something or
- 21:12say, hey, I have this opportunity, then they're all
- 21:15like, Oh my gosh, you're the first person I'd go to.
- 21:17That's right. You didn't lead with it, That's
- 21:19right. Right.
- 21:20Yeah. So you shifted into to flipping,
- 21:24you had a great, you know, first flip and then how long did you
- 21:29do that? And because then you got into
- 21:31lending, right? Yeah, I got into lending really
- 21:33quick within 12 months because what I had found out and
- 21:37flipping is, I mean, there's so many moving parts as as you know
- 21:41and I didn't like, I, I did not like the oversight of the deals.
- 21:47I did not like the managing of vendors and contractors and, and
- 21:52I have found out really quickly that I was able to build good
- 21:56relationships with trust and I was also able to raise a lot of
- 21:58money. So I became the money partner.
- 22:01So then I found different people that were good.
- 22:03I found someone that was good at finding deals, found out someone
- 22:05that was good at doing the rehab and then I would bring in the
- 22:07money. And so that's what kind of got
- 22:10me initially into lending is after 12 months of flipping, I
- 22:15was, I was good, you know, I got my feet wet and I was like, and
- 22:19partly I thought I was again young and having success.
- 22:24Every, every deal was almost a winner, right?
- 22:26Because in the beginning that's how it is.
- 22:28And, and so I was like, all right, now, you know, I want to,
- 22:30you know, do a fund and a reggae fund, a Reg D fund.
- 22:34I want to, And so I started raising some substantial money.
- 22:36I was like, I'm just going to help lend, you know, raise money
- 22:39and, and lend to different developers and, and builders and
- 22:43flippers. And so I started that really
- 22:46young. I mean, a year after I started
- 22:48flipping. So I did some still a little bit
- 22:50of light flipping with some a small partnership, but that's
- 22:53when I started raising a lot of money and again transitioning
- 22:57to, to raising and lending money.
- 22:59I did probably 75 percent, 80% of all the dollars of people
- 23:05that worked with me did it with their Iras in the retirement
- 23:08accounts. And so I kind of had this
- 23:09boutique thing, this message of, Hey, like, did you know you can
- 23:13use this because your advisor probably isn't telling you.
- 23:15And then, and I wasn't hating an advisor, just saying this is
- 23:18another option. And so that's how I got into the
- 23:21lending world. I, I didn't like the, the fixing
- 23:25and flipping, but I like the money in the finance side of it
- 23:27and I like building the relationships out of it.
- 23:30And so that's all I focused on really from from one year after
- 23:33doing deals to to going on now, I still did deals and that was
- 23:37another lesson I learned as far as trying to manage too much.
- 23:40So I'm still doing some deals flips.
- 23:42But then I thought, oh, I would do my have my lending business
- 23:45and I'd also buy apartment complexes and hotels because of
- 23:49course, you know, I'm a genius at all these things.
- 23:52So, so I doubled down. All the money I was making, I
- 23:54was I was putting into bigger projects myself with partners
- 23:58and couple. And then there's one Tucson.
- 24:00I remember I did a hotel there, I actually think 1 here in
- 24:05Phoenix, but mostly in Vegas and in Utah.
- 24:08And so I was doing bigger, some bigger projects because I
- 24:11thought, you know, I was the man, right?
- 24:13And I was I could do bigger projects and also lending at the
- 24:16same time. So how did you go about?
- 24:20We have the same story because I did the same thing.
- 24:21Flipping hated operations, hated having to deal with
- 24:24subcontractors and all the stuff and too impatient to go through
- 24:27this whole deal cycle and love the money side, the capital
- 24:31market side and the relationship side.
- 24:32So we're super aligned on that part.
- 24:35But when you started raising more money, I mean, you're super
- 24:37young, you're starting a, a debt fund essentially.
- 24:41And you had this skill set, this knowledge of like, wow, there's
- 24:44a golden opportunity here for people to be able to lend their
- 24:48money out of their IRA, make higher returns, not pay taxes on
- 24:51it. Like tada, that sounds amazing.
- 24:53So what was your approach to actually go out and start
- 24:55raising large amounts of capital when you did decide to to break
- 24:58ground and again, brand new thing, no track record, didn't
- 25:02have a debt fund before and then going on to raising, you know,
- 25:05hundreds of millions. Did you partner with somebody?
- 25:07Were you doing marketing? Were you going to events?
- 25:09Did you go build relationships with all these IRA companies?
- 25:13Like what was your specific approach that led you to be so
- 25:15successful? So I did all of those things,
- 25:17but specifically what I did is I found individuals that had
- 25:22followers that had a following that had a database.
- 25:26So I would go and find, you know, this was a long time ago,
- 25:29but I'd go find the Hannahs of the world, right?
- 25:31And be like, OK, you've got a following.
- 25:32You've got to listen, oh, Hannah, you want to raise money
- 25:35for this next deal. Obviously it's an example,
- 25:37right? Let me show you if I can call
- 25:41your database and you introduce your database to me and my team,
- 25:44my 10 salespeople. We're going to call through
- 25:47introduce ourselves because you've introduced them to us and
- 25:51explain to them how they can use their IRA to invest in Hannah's
- 25:54next deal. So you have the database, right?
- 25:57So I would go to, and by the way, I did this on all levels
- 26:00for someone who has a small, small database of a few 100
- 26:03people to people that had, you know, databases of 100,000
- 26:06people. But they had this nest egg,
- 26:10these individuals, these, these CRMS and these databases, but
- 26:15they didn't realize how much money of, of their clients that
- 26:18wanted to invest with them, but had their money locked up in
- 26:20Iras. So I, I went, I went to them and
- 26:23I'd say, Hey, look, let me access this.
- 26:25You introduce them to us. Let's have the conversation.
- 26:27Let's do all our disclosures and all the other things and have
- 26:30our sales people call them and we'd raise dollars.
- 26:33We did events as well. That and events that and live
- 26:35events were the two things we did the live events.
- 26:38You know, I see different pictures and I know you've some
- 26:40of the not necessary people. You've recently, well, some of
- 26:42the people that you've also interviewed.
- 26:44I'd go to those events. I would negotiate with them and
- 26:46say, hey, look, let us talk. You know, at your event, whoever
- 26:50you, you know, celebrity are, you're good at this and you know
- 26:53the creative and they're all, but you're not good at the IRA
- 26:56stuff at all. Let us come in and teach your
- 26:59students or your audience something that they're not
- 27:02familiar with. They might have heard of it.
- 27:04Most people say they have, but they haven't Let us go teach
- 27:06them. And so most people love that we
- 27:08are going to come in and fulfill without them.
- 27:11Pay me. They love that I was going to go
- 27:13teach their students how to have success, how to lend and use
- 27:16their Iras and not pay taxes. And I would do it.
- 27:19I get on stage with thousands of people for, for years and years
- 27:21and years teaching them how to use their IRA, but they had the
- 27:26audiences. I was never good at filling a
- 27:28room with, you know, I tried that once with celebrities and
- 27:32I'm, I was, I'm not good at filling a room, but I would go
- 27:34to people that were filling rooms and, and get the
- 27:37opportunity to either be on their stage or they pay me to be
- 27:39on their stage. And, and so those live events or
- 27:42their databases, those two things, the database work just
- 27:45as good. And today and now it's like
- 27:46webinars and podcasts. But that's, that's how I
- 27:49literally, you know, again in my early 20s, I went and found
- 27:54influencers and that really move the needle and, and, and if I
- 27:58had to start all over again, the same thing works.
- 28:00When you think influencer, I think too many people think they
- 28:03got to get to Grant Cardone right, or Pace Morby right, or,
- 28:06or Hannah or whoever it may be. You don't have to start there.
- 28:10Like I was starting with influencers who maybe nobody
- 28:13knows, but they still had 10,000 followers and 1000 investors.
- 28:19Like that's an influencer, That's someone that can help
- 28:22move the needle. 30 to 40% of American adults have a
- 28:28retirement account. That's a huge number.
- 28:31So almost everybody's audience, unless you're an influencer that
- 28:36only has 18 year old followers, which there's those two, then
- 28:40maybe it's only 5%. But if they're older than that
- 28:43and they have some, you know, on their later 20s and 30s and have
- 28:46a following, that's where I began.
- 28:49And so, and that's also why I've got how I've gotten to learn and
- 28:52meet so many. Interesting celebrities, if you
- 28:55want to call them our influencers and you get to see
- 28:57who's the real ones and who's not.
- 28:58I mean, I get to be on stage and hear, you know, I get, you know,
- 29:02they get to hear how great or not great they really are.
- 29:05And you know, I were talking about that before the show for a
- 29:07minute. We were talking about like who's
- 29:08real and who's not. I mean that's that's a real
- 29:13conversation everyone should have.
- 29:14And so anyways, that's I'm going to different tangent there, but
- 29:18but that's how I that's how I began and how and I had
- 29:21literally 10 salespeople raising dollars all day long from these
- 29:26different databases. That's brilliant.
- 29:28Yeah. And that that ties into my
- 29:30friend Ben Hardy. He's one of my favorite authors,
- 29:33Dan Sullivan and Ben Hardy and I, His book 10X is easier than
- 29:362X and also the science of scaling.
- 29:38Have you read those books? That first one, yeah.
- 29:40OK, yeah, one of my favorite books, but I love that you said
- 29:43that because it's so key, because if you think in terms of
- 29:4710X in your goal, right? So instead of I'm going to
- 29:50raise, you know, 100 grand for this one property that needs a
- 29:53loan, you're thinking, OK, I'm going to create a whole fund and
- 29:57I'm going to go to all of these distribution channels who and
- 30:01tap into their audience. So the one hour of time I could
- 30:03spend with the leader who has access to 10,000 people in their
- 30:06database is going to give me 10,000 business opportunities
- 30:12immediately versus going and trying to make the relationship
- 30:15with each of the 10,000 individual people who's only
- 30:18going to give you 1 sale per person.
- 30:20And so when you think of those levels of scale, and that's what
- 30:22I'm working on right now and my company right, is when I think
- 30:25of, OK, how do I attend XI want to go to a billion, you know,
- 30:28year one, I want to do 10 billion year 2.
- 30:30Like if that were to happen, who would I have to bring into my
- 30:34world? Who would have to be my clients?
- 30:35Who would I be spending those hours with and building those
- 30:38relationships and excuse me and making it a win for them of that
- 30:43type of like you have an affiliate program and a referral
- 30:45program and like these different things that you could do where
- 30:47they're winning from partnering with you, they're serving their
- 30:50audience, they're providing value there.
- 30:52The audience is winning. They're making money and
- 30:55learning things that they didn't know about that their advisors
- 30:57aren't telling them, right? And so I just think it's so
- 30:59important for everyone watching this to understand is like
- 31:02change your mindset to instead of thinking about just the next
- 31:06client, you have to get, how do you get the next 10,000 clients
- 31:09with that same hour of time? Yeah, because.
- 31:12You can and they're out. There, Yeah.
- 31:14And now, I mean, you can find anybody.
- 31:16You can find anybody that you would want to work with
- 31:19instantly. You just ask Claude, go on, go
- 31:22type in A tag on Instagram. Like it's so easy now to get a
- 31:26hold of people. And yeah, it's that that's super
- 31:30awesome that you were doing that.
- 31:32So I want to actually dive into IRA's because I think, you know,
- 31:37I worked in corporate America when I was 20 years old as an
- 31:40engineer and had a 401K automatically set up.
- 31:43And you know, I put in my 3%, they matched at 3%, they put it
- 31:46into some moderately, you know, aggressive, whatever thing.
- 31:53And that was, that was my four O 1K.
- 31:56And I was like, OK, this is a total fraud.
- 31:58It barely makes any money and I have no control over it and all
- 32:00this stuff. And I'm just not a huge fan of
- 32:02stocks in general. And so, but when I left the
- 32:05company and became an entrepreneur, I rolled it over
- 32:07into a Roth IRA because they told me I had to.
- 32:10And then I never touched it again.
- 32:11I actually just pulled up the account like a month ago and
- 32:13there's $20,000 in it that I haven't looked at since I was
- 32:1720, but but I could have been using that and adding to it
- 32:21through a Roth IRA. So why is a Roth IRA so amazing?
- 32:26How can you use it to build wealth outside of a, you know,
- 32:29how is it different than a Traditional IRA?
- 32:32Who can use it, who can set it up, and why is it so amazing?
- 32:36Well, the Roth IRA is absolutely the sexiest retirement account
- 32:41there is because it grows tax free and comes out tax free.
- 32:45The advantages of a young person starting a Roth is I mean, you
- 32:50can play with the calculator on but it, but it we're talking
- 32:53about millions of dollars of difference from an individual
- 32:57that use a Traditional IRA to a Roth.
- 32:59So let me explain. Most people that start
- 33:03retirement accounts have a traditional and they do it
- 33:07because there's a tax break today.
- 33:09So when you put X dollars in, let's say you put in $10,000
- 33:13into a traditional account, or seventh out, whatever the number
- 33:16is that you're allowed to do per year, that amount is deducted
- 33:21off of your income so you don't pay taxes on it, which is great.
- 33:25So now it's an account and it's growing and it's growing tax
- 33:29free. But then when whatever that they
- 33:30call it, $10,000 tends into $1,000,000 / 30 years when you
- 33:35pull out the million, you're paying taxes on the full million
- 33:38to $300,000 to get the tax write off here.
- 33:45An individual, there's a Roth doesn't get the tax write off
- 33:48here. So they have to pay taxes on the
- 33:507000, let's say. But you put the $7000 into the
- 33:54Roth so you still have to pay taxes on it.
- 33:57But now that 7000 turns into a million, when you pull out the
- 34:00million, 100% of it comes out tax free.
- 34:04That's that's the difference between a, a traditional and
- 34:07Roth. But what's more exciting?
- 34:08I mean that I wouldn't even say what's more exciting that, but
- 34:11why I like it so much is there's so many incredible stories of
- 34:15individuals, especially creative entrepreneurs are like, oh, I
- 34:20want to invest in XYZ new company.
- 34:23I don't want to manage it. I'm not going to operate it, but
- 34:27typically you and I might have our LLC be a partner in it,
- 34:30right? We're going to put 10 or 20 or
- 34:32$100,000 into this new company. Well, instead have your Roth buy
- 34:37into that new company. And so now your Roth's the
- 34:39owner. And so now when this new company
- 34:4110X's, right? Because in the stock market,
- 34:44you're going to do decent returns, 6 to 10% per year
- 34:47depending upon what period you look at.
- 34:50If you're a lender with your IRA, you're going to make
- 34:53probably between 8 and 14%, maybe 18%.
- 34:57But but the upside of potential startup businesses and in
- 35:03businesses that may be these bigger marketing businesses
- 35:06where you can 10X, those are the ones you want to invest in your
- 35:09Roth. So now you're $10,000.
- 35:11A $100,000 Roth turns into $1,000,000 in 1-2 or three
- 35:15years. If you were to do that in your
- 35:16LLC, you'd probably pay 200,000 taxes or 0.
- 35:22And you know when you talked about, you know the number one
- 35:25rule, not losing money, well the number one expense is taxes.
- 35:29So if you can not lose your money but also not pay taxes or
- 35:35defer paying taxes, you and I can invest in the exact same
- 35:38things for the next 20 years. You could do it in your LLC or
- 35:42in a Traditional IRA and I could do mine and my Roth and after 20
- 35:46years, same exact returns. I would have somewhere between
- 35:4920 and probably 35% more money than you just by using a vehicle
- 35:55that the IRS has approved. And what's exciting about a
- 35:58self-directed account is you can invest in almost anything in
- 36:01crypto currencies and start new startup businesses.
- 36:04I mean, there's a few rules that you can't, but that's what's
- 36:07exciting from my perspective as I get to share and educate
- 36:10people about something that most of America has no idea they can
- 36:14do. Right and you say that you share
- 36:16what advisors don't, right, What most advisors don't.
- 36:18And so most advisors, as all of us know, is open up this
- 36:22account, put a percentage of your paycheck in it, and then
- 36:25we're just going to buy this index fund and you just leave it
- 36:28there until you're, you know, 65, right?
- 36:32But with the, those index funds aren't always the best rate of
- 36:36return or the lowest risk or the, you know, highest upside or
- 36:39any of these things. And if you have a self-directed
- 36:42Roth IRA and you have that opportunity to invest in real
- 36:45estate deals, real estate flips where you could make massive,
- 36:48you know, 234X on your money very quickly, or private
- 36:51lending, which just like you said, anywhere from 8 to 18% on
- 36:55your money and 1st lien position on real estate, which is a
- 36:58fairly secure position for growth or venture capital.
- 37:02If you were going for these big upsides.
- 37:04Like I was talking to a friend of mine who's in a mastermind
- 37:08with this guy that put $100,000 a hundred, yeah, $100,000 into
- 37:14SpaceX and it's where he's cashing out for 150 million.
- 37:18Like if that 100 gram came from the Roth IRA, 0 tax is on the
- 37:22$150 million gain. And so it's so cool that you can
- 37:25actually be an entrepreneur investor within your, your own
- 37:28IRA and get the tax advantages. And just like you said, it
- 37:31doesn't make any sense to to defer taxes now and then pay it
- 37:35on the whole compound and some later.
- 37:37And what do taxes do over time? They go up or down exactly.
- 37:43And so, and then if you can pair it with, if you are an
- 37:46entrepreneur and you have tax write offs and you could buy
- 37:49real estate and get depreciation and all these other tax
- 37:51advantages, you might not be paying taxes on it now or later,
- 37:55right? Because you can get it done.
- 37:56And that's the strategy that I've started using with my newer
- 38:01Roth IRA that I am now contributing to.
- 38:03So what is the process for somebody?
- 38:05Because obviously you, you can't just have an IRA and then take
- 38:08money out of it and go invest it somewhere.
- 38:10You have to have a custodian, which is what you do.
- 38:12So what's that process for somebody who maybe has a a
- 38:15Traditional IRA, they want to roll it over to a Roth IRA or
- 38:18they just want to open a Roth IRA and they want to be able to
- 38:21invest it with, you know, my real estate projects.
- 38:24Yeah, real estate projects, lending, venture capital, all
- 38:27these things. What does that look like for
- 38:28them? What is the cost involved and
- 38:29how long does it take? Yeah, sure.
- 38:31So I mean, that's what we do. And so and, and and we'll go
- 38:34back to this, I'm sure, but it's, this is not what I thought
- 38:36I would be doing today in my life owning a Trust Company.
- 38:40But to answer your question, we'll use you as an example.
- 38:43If, if an individual has, let's say they've got an IRA or an old
- 38:484-O1K at Fidelity, a Charles Schwab or whatever it might be
- 38:51and like, oh, you know what, I'd like to put a portion of her,
- 38:53all of my money in this IRA into Hannah's deal or under her fund.
- 38:58It's a simple process. So it's, it's basically a call
- 39:00with my team and we fill out the application really with you over
- 39:04the phone, which most companies don't do because it is a little
- 39:07daunting. It's a little bit, it's new.
- 39:09And so we fill it out for you. We move the money from, let's
- 39:12say that you've got $200,000 of Fidelity, you want to put
- 39:15$100,000. And again, I'm just using your
- 39:18example on Hannah's fund, you we'd, we'd say Fidelity send
- 39:21over per their request $100,000 on their behalf to your account
- 39:25at Horizon Trust Company. So the money move over to your
- 39:27new self-directed IRA account with us.
- 39:31So half would stay at Fidelity, half would come here and once it
- 39:34arrives there, which takes about 7 to 10 days, once Fidelity
- 39:38eventually has to let it go and send it to us, they're not in a
- 39:40hurry to send it to us. So once they send it to us, then
- 39:44after it arrives within one to three days, business days, we
- 39:47then send that money for the request to the investment of
- 39:50their choice. Now we help them make sure that
- 39:52they don't do anything prohibited.
- 39:53Like you can't invest in your own like business that you're
- 39:56working in where you're paying yourself a salary.
- 39:58There's a, there's a few different rules.
- 40:00You can't, there's a few different deals you can't do,
- 40:02but it's more like arm's length kind of deals.
- 40:04You can invest in other people's deals and lend other people's
- 40:06deals. But when it comes to your own
- 40:09deals, you can do it. But there's some certain rules.
- 40:12And so the process, the whole process takes from beginning to
- 40:15end about 20 days, 15 to 20 days to get the money transferred
- 40:19over the fee. Our first year fees are 595,
- 40:22which is your setup and your annual.
- 40:23So it's doesn't matter if it's $1,000,000 account or a $50,000
- 40:27account, it's $595 in year 1. Every year thereafter, it's an
- 40:31all inclusive fee, which is an asset base.
- 40:34It's so as we're somewhere between 25 basis points and 100
- 40:37basis points, the larger the account, the smaller basis
- 40:40points. So like if you got a $40,000
- 40:43account, it's it's going to be 400 bucks.
- 40:46But but if it's you got like $100,000 account, it's like
- 40:50$600.00. That makes sense.
- 40:52So the larger it is, the smaller.
- 40:53And so it's less than my where my point is it is less than 1%.
- 40:58So wherever you're at most like you're paying one to 3%, the
- 41:02average account fee with us is 65 basis points.
- 41:05OK. And so are is that for the whole
- 41:08self-directed Roth IRA account? Every year you pay an annual
- 41:11fee. Yeah, and that's for the whole
- 41:12account. And so you can do as many wires
- 41:15or transfers or asset purchases you want for the Roth.
- 41:18And then, and just to be clear, some people get confused by like
- 41:21this oil. I've, you know, I heard you on
- 41:22the show and I want to do the the self-directed Roth account.
- 41:27Well, that's correct language. But just to be clear, self
- 41:30directing is just a descriptive words really.
- 41:34It's not a type of IRA. So if you have a traditional or
- 41:37simple or Sep, you can move that over, but it's still a simple,
- 41:41traditional or Sep. It's just self-directed.
- 41:44So it means same rules apply as far as how much you can put in
- 41:48and take out. The different only difference is
- 41:50what you can invest in when you self direct.
- 41:52With our company, this has been around for since the 70s.
- 41:55It's almost 50 years. This has been around.
- 41:58Only 5% of Americans do this and I think that probably only 15%
- 42:03of Americans should. This is not for all of America.
- 42:07This is for people that are going to actually read their
- 42:09contracts, do their due diligence, know who they're
- 42:11investing with. But you know, there's over 100
- 42:14million Iras that have over $22 trillion.
- 42:18And so it's, it's there's a large marketplace for people
- 42:22that should be self directing. Right.
- 42:24Yeah. Not everybody should be an
- 42:26investor, right? Like they should just go in the
- 42:29index fund and don't look at it and contribute to it.
- 42:31And yeah, we get that. Better than losing everything.
- 42:34Yeah, I hope it break. But OK.
- 42:37So for my own understanding, there are it's $7500 a year now
- 42:42I think is the limit that you can put per year into your IRA.
- 42:46Into your Roth, Yeah. Into your Roth, can somebody who
- 42:49is employed W2 employed create a self-directed Roth IRA?
- 42:55Yes. Now there's certain rules and
- 42:58and we won't go into all those six, there's lots of them.
- 43:00But that's why I just encourage, if you're interested in this,
- 43:04definitely reach out, send me a message to meet my team because
- 43:07there's a few different, you know, I'm not a CPAI, got to say
- 43:09that, right? And I'm not a financial advisor,
- 43:11but we can give you the insurance and outs of what types
- 43:14of accounts. But I will share with you is an
- 43:17individual who is employed can open up a Roth.
- 43:21There is a rule if you make too much money, you can't contribute
- 43:23to a Roth. But if you start a business, a
- 43:28marketing business let's say, and have an LLC, you can open up
- 43:32a self treated 4-O1K and create a Roth account.
- 43:36Strangely enough, you can actually get up to almost
- 43:40$75,000 a year contributed into a Roth.
- 43:44If you have a four O 1K. It's a little bit there's,
- 43:47there's some moving parts of that and steps.
- 43:49We help individuals do this every single month, but it's not
- 43:53for you. I want to be real clear, you
- 43:55should not try to figure it all out on your own.
- 43:57A quick simple phone call like, hey, look, I'd like to here's my
- 44:00situation. Here's how I'm employed here.
- 44:02I own a business. This is what I'm contributing
- 44:05in. And then we can kind of give you
- 44:07some recommendations to talk to your CPA about.
- 44:09But one of the number one things I'll say that I did and that I,
- 44:14I implore and ask everyone to do is start your Roth.
- 44:18Like now, don't wait another year or two.
- 44:20Start your Roth, invest it in someone or something that you
- 44:25understand. You will not be sorry.
- 44:27Right. I was just doing a video on the
- 44:29car drive up here with my phone saying if you invest $300 a
- 44:35month at an 8% compounded return for eight years, it's $1.8
- 44:41million. You do it in a Roth then all of
- 44:44that will come out tax free. Exactly.
- 44:46And that's even if you do a Roth and you just put it in, you know
- 44:48the S&P, right? You don't have to get all
- 44:51creative and fancy with fund managers and living.
- 44:53Compounding is incredible. It is it I mean that that is the
- 44:58most wonderful thing. If you understand it, you do it
- 45:02and and it will be life changing.
- 45:04And that's why you know, when I run into these these these
- 45:06farmers, literally these farmers that used to invest with me.
- 45:09I remember back in the day I was raising money.
- 45:10I was like, you know, like the most rednecky people, most
- 45:14beautiful people, and all of a sudden you're like, hey, here's
- 45:17my whatever. It's $6.4 million.
- 45:20I'm like, what? Because they understand it and
- 45:23they put away the money and they save it.
- 45:25So it's it's pretty cool. Yeah, farming money is a whole
- 45:28different level of, well, yeah, but it's true.
- 45:31It's anything above 0 compounded over time.
- 45:34David Bach, he's the author of Automatic Millionaire.
- 45:38Yeah, and I met him, he says $27.00 a day compounded over,
- 45:44you know, whatever he did 40 years or something was $4.6
- 45:49million or something like that. He basically calls it like a cup
- 45:52of coffee a day. We'll make you a millionaire if
- 45:54you just automate the habit. And that's the thing, people
- 45:56think you need all this money to invest and to build wealth and
- 46:00you really don't. You just need above 0 and you
- 46:02need it consistently every single day or week or month.
- 46:05Like automate it to where it's easy and you don't even think
- 46:07about it but. I have to say this is the part
- 46:10that people think they've heard it before or it's boring because
- 46:15we're not because I'm not showing this photo of this
- 46:18badass house that we fix and flip for $2,000,000.
- 46:21Like that's what people want to hear.
- 46:23And, and that I, I think it's a confusing message that is so
- 46:28hard to do, you know, fit flip this property on your own and go
- 46:32make 100 or 200 or $500,000. What everyone can do is just
- 46:37start putting away a little bit of money, even if it is in the
- 46:40index, right? That is something you can easily
- 46:44do. And before you know it, 5-10
- 46:45years later and it's just not sexy people.
- 46:48Just you got to do it. It's it's really fucking sexy 10
- 46:53years later. I know, I know that was me with
- 46:55my first property. I was like, oh, I'm going to
- 46:56make, you know, $200 a month off my rental income or whatever.
- 47:01And but what was it? 10 years later, I had made
- 47:06$250,000 on a $25,000 investment just in appreciation gain, not
- 47:12to mention all the cash flow. And then the rent went up super
- 47:15fast. So that $200 a month became
- 47:17$2000 a month in profit pretty quickly.
- 47:19And so it was nice to look back like, oh wow, this asset's
- 47:22actually like worth some money now.
- 47:24And I almost didn't buy it because I thought that it wasn't
- 47:26worth it, right? It's only 200.
- 47:27A month. That's right.
- 47:28Yeah. So it's amazing.
- 47:30So what is the mega back door? Because the Roth IRA you, it's
- 47:36$7500 a year that you can invest, which is, is nice, but
- 47:40it's, you know, if you compound it and you make good interest,
- 47:42it does grow and it can turn into many, many millions.
- 47:45But for somebody who has more than that, like let's say you
- 47:47want to invest 75,000 a year in your Roth IRA and be able to put
- 47:50that into assets and different investments and get those tax
- 47:53advantages. Is there a strategy to be able
- 47:55to do that And and who can tap into that strategy?
- 48:00So look, anyone that has like in your example, you've got an old,
- 48:03I think you said you had a different 4-O1K as well.
- 48:05I think maybe. I had a four O 1K but it
- 48:07converted. I think, yeah, OK.
- 48:09So most individuals that we work with have a prior retirement
- 48:13account like you, an old 4-O1K or an old IRA and they move all
- 48:18or a portion of it to us at Horizon Trust.
- 48:20So once it arrives there, it's not Roth.
- 48:23And so it's sitting there and they're about to invest in what
- 48:28you can do is you can convert your IRA or old 4-O1K into a
- 48:33Roth like you did. So the mega backdoor, you know,
- 48:36you're able to put in more money or transfer over money that's
- 48:40traditional and then pay the taxes, which we'll talk about in
- 48:43a second. Convert it now.
- 48:45Like for example, you're telling about this deal is going to 10X
- 48:48in the next two to five years, right?
- 48:51Well, if I know that's going to happen and I'm going to put my
- 48:54Roth or my IRA in it before I put my IRA in it, I'm going to
- 48:58convert my Roth or contribute more money into my Sep twenty,
- 49:02$30,000 into my account. And after I contribute into it,
- 49:05then you convert it. It's a loophole for the, for
- 49:09those that have accounts to convert into the Roth.
- 49:11Now once it's in the Roth, you can convert $1,000,000
- 49:15traditional into a Roth. So once you convert it, you got
- 49:18to pay the taxes on the full, on the whole $1,000,000.
- 49:21So what people are doing are doing a cost sag, a bonus
- 49:26depreciation on a real estate dealer too, right?
- 49:29So let's say you're going to have a $300,000 tax bill.
- 49:32Well that year you want to do a, you want to do a big bonus
- 49:36depreciation, ideal. So you offset the taxes
- 49:38completely. So now you convert your
- 49:40traditional to a Roth, you do a bonus depreciation on real
- 49:44estate deal, wipes out all the taxes, you don't pay anything
- 49:47and now it's a Roth. Now you invest that full
- 49:49$1,000,000 that's now a Roth into that deal.
- 49:52It's going to 5 or 10 times. Does that make sense?
- 49:54Right. So that's, that's what a lot of
- 49:56people do. They're doing a backdoor Roth.
- 49:58But can you contribute because I was reading something on Claude,
- 50:03but my my best advisor these days that says you could put up
- 50:07to 69,000 or 72,000 or something like that per year.
- 50:11That's right. You can do that per year.
- 50:14If if it's your 4-O1K, you can have a Roth account and put up
- 50:17to $72,000. That's with your employer
- 50:19employee match. You can do that.
- 50:21So you can be do you have to be an entrepreneur or you could be
- 50:24an employee. LLC and you'd be an employee of
- 50:27your LLC. OK.
- 50:29But this it's totally different. You can have your 9:00 to 9:00
- 50:31to five job at a business. And an LLC and.
- 50:34Then I have an LLC and I have an employer and employee.
- 50:38You are the employee and the employer of that LLC, right?
- 50:41And you can do that contribution.
- 50:42Yeah. Like my PLLCI pay myself a
- 50:44salary to me personally and then I have the LLC and I run a
- 50:48business in there, right, so. To get that full Max, there's
- 50:51things you got to pay yourself a bigger salary.
- 50:53There's some, there's some rules and that's why we usually talk
- 50:56to our clients with their Cpas to make sure we do it the right
- 50:59way because we don't know all your moving parts and pieces to
- 51:01your, your plan and what you're paying yourself.
- 51:03But yes, if you're looking to put away a lot of money into a
- 51:06Roth, there's a couple ways of doing it and you absolutely want
- 51:10to do it, especially in your next deal.
- 51:11Like if someone's like, if you know it's going to be a home
- 51:14run, you got to put in your Roth, Yeah.
- 51:16Or create a Roth. Yeah, because taxes, it's not
- 51:20fun and it ruins, ruins your compound.
- 51:23Well, when you're paying tax, I mean, if you do a compound
- 51:25calculator on 20 to 50% taxes each year on your returns, yeah,
- 51:33yeah, yeah. So, OK, so we, we really deep
- 51:36dived into do we miss anything on, on Ross on anything that
- 51:40anybody should know? No, I, I just, I, I always like
- 51:45when it goes into these kind of questions.
- 51:47I feel like sometimes the audience struggles with it.
- 51:51Yeah, because it's just not as fun as the sexy picture or deal
- 51:55we're going to 10 times. But if if you understand it or
- 51:58don't, the the take away should be that you do it now.
- 52:03It doesn't matter who you do it with and it'll be with me.
- 52:05But that you do it, that's the most important thing is taking
- 52:08action and creating this account.
- 52:09You won't be sorry. Yeah, yeah.
- 52:11Yeah, whether you're an employee or an entrepreneur or both, it
- 52:14just makes sense to have it as an extra vehicle that you don't
- 52:17have to pay taxes on when you take it out and you combine your
- 52:20wealth. So I love it.
- 52:22I'm a believer now and we need to connect about the whole mega
- 52:26thing too, because that would be nice, But I I I've dove into
- 52:31that and nerded out on it. But I want to go back to your
- 52:35kind of founders journey and when you lost everything in
- 52:382008, because this is always been my biggest fear is you work
- 52:43and you build and you build these relationships and you
- 52:45build this trust and you grind and grind and grind and you like
- 52:47pour everything. You know, I was just at a video
- 52:50on this the other day's to be a successful entrepreneur, you
- 52:53have to pour every part of you into your business.
- 52:56You know, every ounce of energy, every dollar to your name, every
- 52:58waking minute of your time. Like there's periods of time
- 53:01where you have to pour everything and hopefully you get
- 53:03to the period of time where you can start to hire yourself out
- 53:06eventually. But that's just not reality for
- 53:08a startup founder when you're in this massive building phase.
- 53:12And so you were super young, you're having all the success,
- 53:14you're raising all this money, you're collaborating with all
- 53:17these people that are influencers and, and celebrities
- 53:20to be able to build your distribution and channels to
- 53:23grow fast. But then, you know, this was all
- 53:26up to the rise of 2008. And no, not many people escaped
- 53:31the fall of 2008. And you know, now we're in
- 53:35another different type of recession, volatility risk,
- 53:40definitely different, but there's definitely some blood in
- 53:43the water, some people that are in a lot of pain and going
- 53:45through losses right now and probably will continue to, you
- 53:49know, here as we progress. We're here early in 2020. 6 So
- 53:52what was that like? What happened when you were in
- 53:56that situation in 2008? How successful were you?
- 54:00How much did you lose and how did you mentally deal with that?
- 54:04Because I'm sure you've heard the story of the guy that, you
- 54:06know, committed suicide in Arizona who had the big lending
- 54:09company in the 2008 crash. And he was very well known and
- 54:11had whatever, 100 millions or billions.
- 54:14I don't remember how big his fund was, but that is such a
- 54:17devastating thing, right when you go out there and you build
- 54:20all this trust in these relationships and then something
- 54:22happens that you can't really control an economic Black Swan
- 54:27type of event. And and then people take their
- 54:31life and it destroys everything in their life.
- 54:33So like, how did you get through that?
- 54:35What what was that story and and how did you overcome it?
- 54:38So in 2000, you know, I lived in Vegas at the time and so just
- 54:44like it was Vegas and Phoenix were like the same then.
- 54:47I mean, you bought a piece of real estate, you'd wait
- 54:49overnight when a release happened, you'd buy a piece of
- 54:52real estate and then three months later you could sell it
- 54:54for $100,000 more. It was crazy.
- 54:57Well, my first, that was the first ten years of my career, I
- 55:01just, I thought anything I did was gold and I didn't realize at
- 55:06the time that anyone that anyone did was gold in real estate.
- 55:08It didn't matter. I just, but I thought, you know,
- 55:11so I was making a lot of money. I had three kids, my wife at the
- 55:15time when I was pregnant with the 4th.
- 55:17And I mean, I was already living the like a life I couldn't
- 55:22dreamed of. And I was 30 years old.
- 55:25And then when it came to a screeching halt, you know, on
- 55:28paper. And then I learned a lot of
- 55:30lessons from this. But I remember on paper, I was,
- 55:35I mean, I was probably worth on paper 10 to $15 million at 30.
- 55:40And I was like this, you know, my parents were like, yeah.
- 55:43And that back then, too, was like, what with inflation over
- 55:47the past five years, it's been probably like $50 million.
- 55:50Right. I mean, I was feeling really, I
- 55:52mean I was, I was doubling down on everything, not in a like
- 55:56aggressive way, but nothing failed.
- 56:00So I didn't know loss really. And so any money I had, I'd put
- 56:04in apartment complexes and hotels and I'd lend out.
- 56:08Well, in 2008, not only did every single loan, every loan
- 56:14with the default that we did. And so imagine the communication
- 56:21that you have got to do with investors, right?
- 56:23And so every loan's in default. No, nothing's paying.
- 56:27I was a guarantor on $25 million of bank loans.
- 56:33And I had three kids that were, you know, 6 and under, no
- 56:37forthcoming. And I remember, you know, people
- 56:43serving me at the house and that was really, really heavy when I
- 56:48say people, the banks. And so I had in my, my partners
- 56:52in those deals that were guarantors filed bankruptcy.
- 56:56And I probably should have looking back on it, glad I
- 56:58didn't. But I was just thought that was
- 57:00like, almost like just seemed like it was like a bad, like a
- 57:05really negative bad thing to do. And so I didn't file bankruptcy
- 57:10and I had to negotiate. So I was not only at zero, I was
- 57:14at -25 million and at 30 with the kid on the way.
- 57:20And I didn't, you know, that's one thing I learned too.
- 57:23Like I didn't tell my my wife at the time what we were going
- 57:30through. I mean, sure, she saw she knew a
- 57:33little bit, but she had no idea how bad it really was.
- 57:36And I just, I couldn't bear to tell her and didn't want her to
- 57:39stress out about it. Right.
- 57:40Like we got all these kids are at home.
- 57:43So I just was like, I got to F and figure this out like this
- 57:46is. And so I was at 0 and the market
- 57:50crash and banks were calling and I went and negotiated with all
- 57:54of the banks and created terms with all the banks and got a new
- 58:02office. And in this office, because the
- 58:05company went to like basically zero.
- 58:07I was a partner at that time. I partnered with a large firm
- 58:11and and it all the books went to zero and so I went and started
- 58:17my own company if you want to call it that, two offices.
- 58:21I remember the first thing I did is I got like 6 or 8 phone
- 58:26lines. I had no staff.
- 58:28I was like, someday this will be back.
- 58:32Manifestation. Yeah, we were just talking about
- 58:35right. So, so sure enough, I mean, I
- 58:38start and that's actually how I knew that I was actually decent
- 58:42at what I did because I then made money, you know, coming out
- 58:49of that and I started buying homes again, right?
- 58:51What I hated doing at the courthouse footsteps, right?
- 58:57Went and got some people that believed in me, got some
- 59:00cashier's checks and started buying properties and and rinse
- 59:06and repeat what I just did the prior 10 years.
- 59:10I just did, but I did it three times bigger in the next 10
- 59:15years, but started from zero. And I negotiate with all the
- 59:18banks. I didn't pay them all in full,
- 59:19but I wouldn't negotiate them. And you know the bottom down.
- 59:24And that's a whole nother incredible story.
- 59:27Of how I do that. All the Cliff notes.
- 59:30I prepared my bankruptcy documents and literally did.
- 59:34I hired A bankruptcy attorney and then I went to each of the
- 59:38three banks. It was me and the bank.
- 59:41And when the bank means like 4 people and I had my bankruptcy
- 59:45docs in this Manila folder as well as their notes like what I
- 59:49owed them and I would, I talked to them and I wasn't lying at
- 59:53all. But I also wanted them to be
- 59:56clear. Like if they push me too hard
- 59:58I'm filing bankruptcy and you'll get a 0 or very very little.
- 1:00:02And so, so I would just talk to them and tell them my situation.
- 1:00:06But as I talked to them, I slowly, methodically thumbed
- 1:00:10through my bankruptcy docs. I saw them looking at my docs,
- 1:00:15so they knew I was ready to file till I got to their note.
- 1:00:20And I'd say, all right, well, I just want you to know this is me
- 1:00:23I didn't bring counsel with. Me.
- 1:00:24You didn't tell them that you brought bankruptcy docs.
- 1:00:26You just had the note and all your documents.
- 1:00:28Yeah, my bankruptcy docs right there.
- 1:00:29Yeah. And just said, hey, look, I want
- 1:00:31to work with you. And so anyways, Long story
- 1:00:33short, I negotiated the $25 million down to $1.6 million
- 1:00:39that I had to pay. Wow.
- 1:00:40But that's still like when you're at 0.
- 1:00:43Yeah, that's a lot. That's.
- 1:00:44Still a lot. So I negotiated that to be paid
- 1:00:46out over three years and I figured out how to handle all of
- 1:00:50it. And so, and none of them, you
- 1:00:52know, didn't have to file bankruptcy, start from scratch.
- 1:00:54Meanwhile, I'm still trying to pay the bills and pay off my
- 1:00:57these. That was still like 25,000,000
- 1:00:59if you think about it. That's.
- 1:01:01So incredible It was, it was, it was the things I did and it, but
- 1:01:05it was all like, I didn't lie at all.
- 1:01:08I just, but I also knew that I, I couldn't be too fragile or too
- 1:01:12strong. And I mean, I, I mean, I made
- 1:01:14sure I wore, I wore the right everything to it, you know, no
- 1:01:17fancy watch. I was like, OK, this is where
- 1:01:20I'm at. And, and again, I wasn't lying
- 1:01:22at all. I just wanted, I didn't want to
- 1:01:24file bankruptcy and I made it through and I started over and I
- 1:01:27learned so much from that. So I call that really my, my,
- 1:01:31my. That was really kind of like my
- 1:01:33degree, my master's degree. I learned a lot.
- 1:01:36And so I'm thankful for it. And I've lived my life so much
- 1:01:40differently because of it. What was the main thing you
- 1:01:43learned from going through that? Like what did you, how do you
- 1:01:47live your life differently after doing that?
- 1:01:49And, and how do you approach investing and, and everything
- 1:01:53that you do differently? Because I know some people they
- 1:01:54go through something like that and they're like, I don't ever
- 1:01:56want to go through that again. And so they, they stop raising
- 1:01:58money, they stop going for the big lease and all that.
- 1:02:00So, and then other people, they're just like, screw it.
- 1:02:03Now I learn, I know what to do. I'm not afraid of it anymore and
- 1:02:06let's just keep building. So like, how did it affect you?
- 1:02:08And what are the the key lessons you learned from losing it all
- 1:02:11and rebuilding? There, there's a handful and
- 1:02:15thanks for asking because it it's, I think it's the most
- 1:02:17important thing that people should be asking.
- 1:02:20So thank you for asking for me. For me, it's absolutely a few
- 1:02:25things. One, it's it's all about how you
- 1:02:29sleep at night. And I didn't realize that until
- 1:02:32you get to you don't sleep at night.
- 1:02:34And what does that mean? Well, when you sleep good at
- 1:02:39night, you can make way better decisions and you can wake way
- 1:02:42more money and you're just happier.
- 1:02:44And So what is it for you? And in that case for me makes me
- 1:02:48sleep better at night. Cash in the bank.
- 1:02:51And so when people talk about their balance sheets, so they
- 1:02:55want to be billionaires, cool, whatever that is for you.
- 1:03:00I just want to sleep good at night and I've and that and for
- 1:03:03me it was cash in the bank. I don't, you know, people like
- 1:03:07go take out your equity and blah, blah, blah, no debt cash
- 1:03:12in the bank. Peace gives me Peace of Mind to
- 1:03:15go out and kick ass because I'm still a career.
- 1:03:17I'm a I'm a go getter. Don't I'm not camouflaging like
- 1:03:21that. I'm like passive.
- 1:03:22No, I'm I'm a fucking killer. But if I sleep good at night, I
- 1:03:27can be a killer. And when you're living a life
- 1:03:30where you have to make a deal happen or get a deal done or
- 1:03:34raise the money for it, that is so stressful.
- 1:03:37And then you end up doing deals that aren't so good because you
- 1:03:42got to do a deal. So having money in the bank is
- 1:03:45more valuable. So I'd rather have $1,000,000 of
- 1:03:47cash in the bank than ten $10 million and no cash in the bank
- 1:03:50on my balance sheet. When you're 25 years old, maybe
- 1:03:54that's not the answer because it doesn't really matter anyways
- 1:03:56because you can make it all over 10 times again.
- 1:03:59But when you're starting getting your 40s, in my opinion, and I'd
- 1:04:01even give us advice in your 30s because I wish I would have done
- 1:04:04it then money in the in the in the bank is very important.
- 1:04:09And then I learned the valuable lesson of no is not final and
- 1:04:14yes is. And so instead of saying yes to
- 1:04:17everything, it was relieving to say no to almost everything.
- 1:04:21Everyone thinks that this is the next best deal.
- 1:04:24I mean, you, Hannah, probably know this better than all.
- 1:04:27Like there's a good deal that comes across your desk probably
- 1:04:30every day, if not at least every week.
- 1:04:33And if you say no to this incredible deal today, it's OK
- 1:04:37because next week or next month another great deals coming.
- 1:04:42So sleeping well at night and learning how to say no, I think
- 1:04:46is very, very critical. And so that's, I think those are
- 1:04:49probably two big takeaways is in, you know, and when I say
- 1:04:52sleeping good at night is having cash and, and having those kind
- 1:04:55of reserves. I didn't need to have all that I
- 1:04:57had in assets and deals. When you have cash, you can live
- 1:05:01through the storm and prepare for some crazy fun stuff that's
- 1:05:03about to come. And then the last thing I'll say
- 1:05:06that has been a constant, but I learned it the hard way, really
- 1:05:10hard way in 2008 as well, is relationships, you know, the
- 1:05:15importance of good relationships, business and
- 1:05:20family. I mean, I missed the ball with I
- 1:05:23was always I've been always a present father, but I wasn't a
- 1:05:26good open partner of trying to protect and I could have done
- 1:05:32better there. And I and I have that now with
- 1:05:35Jessica where I just she probably wants me to say less,
- 1:05:39like I just want her to. I want to share because I don't
- 1:05:42think it's fair to the one that you love not to share what
- 1:05:46you're going through. And I don't give her every
- 1:05:47detail right, of course, but I share all the hard stuff and I
- 1:05:51think that's something I didn't do.
- 1:05:52I was young, I didn't know and I try to share and implored with
- 1:05:55my, my young, aggressive, creative 23 year old son who's
- 1:05:59married now and you know, because he hasn't lost money
- 1:06:02yet. So so I'm trying to share those
- 1:06:05kind of things with him. But those, those are probably
- 1:06:06the takeaways for me. His relationships are very, like
- 1:06:10I said, I just said family, but also business, the business,
- 1:06:13knowing who you're getting going to be a partner with is really,
- 1:06:16really important. Yeah, thank you for sharing
- 1:06:19that, that those are incredible lessons and so true.
- 1:06:21And I was just on the phone with a friend of mine a couple days
- 1:06:24ago talking about that financial piece is like, you know, growing
- 1:06:28up, I grew up in a environment that was very scarcity.
- 1:06:31There was never financial piece that that was not a a thing.
- 1:06:35And I was like, you know what I don't, I think I've ever really
- 1:06:38felt it like real financial piece.
- 1:06:40And I felt it enough to where I've had enough money and I have
- 1:06:42enough cash in the bank where I feel good.
- 1:06:44I'm like, OK, I could make it a couple years and I'm going to be
- 1:06:47fine. And I'll find a way to right.
- 1:06:48So I have a close level of peace, but it's paired with so
- 1:06:52much growth and reinvesting all the time.
- 1:06:55And so I, I actually take pretty low risks because, you know, I
- 1:06:59had a Ishmael on my podcast who just exited his company for 100
- 1:07:02and something a million in six years and get you, he was
- 1:07:05homeless like 6 years ago. And he just now he's got 100
- 1:07:07million in the bank. And he's like you, you don't
- 1:07:10take big enough risks. Like you, you know, you need to
- 1:07:13borrow money or go do this or go do that and like you need to
- 1:07:16hire this executive and all this stuff.
- 1:07:17And I'm like, but the peace, like just the level of peace
- 1:07:20that I have to have cash in the bank.
- 1:07:23And I still would like more peace.
- 1:07:24Like I would like 100 million in the bank.
- 1:07:26I don't have 100 million in the bank, but I have enough where I
- 1:07:27have enough peace to sleep well at night.
- 1:07:29Is worth not growing as fast as of course I want to grow like
- 1:07:34the visionary and the entrepreneur and all that stuff.
- 1:07:36And you still can. You can do that without.
- 1:07:38You have to. Have.
- 1:07:39Yeah. And so that's the thing, the
- 1:07:41goal for me is how, how much can you grow?
- 1:07:43How much impact can you have? How many people can you serve?
- 1:07:46How many goals can you accomplish while at the same
- 1:07:49time maintaining your level of peace and happiness and energy
- 1:07:53of being in the Green Zone to be able to make clear decisions and
- 1:07:56actually sleep well at night? That's right, because I yeah,
- 1:07:59it's everything and and I think that there's a lot of
- 1:08:04incongruency between there's the group of people that are
- 1:08:07capitalist hustlers, grinder, suffer pain, take risk, you full
- 1:08:12leverage and then there's like the Zen Buddhist like anti
- 1:08:16capitalism. Let's all just have peace and
- 1:08:18relax and have the same lives. But I like to blend both of
- 1:08:22them. It's like let's grow like crazy
- 1:08:25and and create amazing things and take risks and maintain the
- 1:08:29peace in the process. And that's the game that I'm
- 1:08:31committed to mastering. You know, that's my goal is
- 1:08:34committed. To mastering and you can and you
- 1:08:36will and you are probably, it sounds like.
- 1:08:38Well, thank you. Yeah, you just got to keep it.
- 1:08:40That's the thing. Sometimes you get out of whack.
- 1:08:41So, so I love that and I, I resonate with that.
- 1:08:44Yeah, thank you. Yeah, so I love that tactic.
- 1:08:48I hope I never have to use. It but.
- 1:08:50It's a really good one. And then you just knew you're
- 1:08:55going to be successful. You got your office, you were
- 1:08:58manifesting what you were going to create, and you rebuilt.
- 1:09:01And when you rebuilt, were you doing the exact same thing?
- 1:09:04Because I mean you started buying the properties.
- 1:09:06Start buying the properties that just paid the bills.
- 1:09:08And So what happened then after that was I had raised so much
- 1:09:12money from individuals with Iras and referred it to other trust
- 1:09:16companies. And the Trust Company service
- 1:09:18was so slow and just dysfunctional.
- 1:09:23It's like when I would say, Hannah, hey, invest in my deal
- 1:09:26with your IRA, you'd say, yes, I'll do it.
- 1:09:29OK, To do that, you need to open up an account with XIZ company.
- 1:09:32And so we would fill out the paperwork, their paperwork for
- 1:09:35you to get it there. And then we give them the
- 1:09:37paperwork and would take them forever.
- 1:09:39They drop the ball. Well, then my investors thought
- 1:09:42trust companies thought the Trust Company or my investment
- 1:09:45sucked because they sucked. So I lost dollars.
- 1:09:48So I was like, I'm going to start a Trust Company.
- 1:09:51And this was like in 2011 at the.
- 1:09:52Bottom market, Yeah. I mean, 2011 is official, but
- 1:09:56yeah, 2010 is when I started the Trust Company.
- 1:10:00And purely because the service sucked, It's I wanted to do real
- 1:10:06estate, keep doing my funds, keep raising monies, but I'm
- 1:10:09gonna own the Trust Company just to speed it up, to make sure it
- 1:10:11goes smooth. Right.
- 1:10:12And that's why I got in the Trust Company business.
- 1:10:14And then it took off. And now it's, I mean, it's
- 1:10:17really all that I really do. It's I love it.
- 1:10:20Didn't think I'd love it, but I love it.
- 1:10:22That's what I do. Yeah.
- 1:10:23And over $1 billion in that. How did you grow to over a
- 1:10:27billion dollars in asks? Do you have any partners in the
- 1:10:29company? I've Yep, I got a couple
- 1:10:31partners. And how did you guys, were they
- 1:10:34in from the beginning? Did you bring them in?
- 1:10:36No, I had two. I just bought out one of them
- 1:10:41and bought some of the interest. I couldn't afford all of it, so
- 1:10:43I had a partner come in who you met Alex bought the other half.
- 1:10:48Oh yeah. And then I have another partner.
- 1:10:50So yeah, we, they were my, my other partner, family member of
- 1:10:53mine. And so when I started, they
- 1:10:55started with me. So, so I'm the majority owner.
- 1:10:58I run it, I assume not to be running it, but they started
- 1:11:03about 15 years ago and I just kept my head down And it's it's
- 1:11:06worked out and we're about to acquire another small Trust
- 1:11:09Company will be over 2 billion probably the next 45 days.
- 1:11:13And what we're still, you know, we're kind of small still in the
- 1:11:16industry. There's not a lot of us, but
- 1:11:18we'll have about 10. We have almost 9000 clients.
- 1:11:21We'll go to about 11,000 clients and and we're boutique.
- 1:11:25We're all about service and so I'm not out to boutique.
- 1:11:28Of 1.4 billion. Yeah.
- 1:11:30I mean, yeah, yeah, we're. Was that was was a big like is
- 1:11:34that as considered a small Trust Company?
- 1:11:351.4 billion. It seems like a big, it's
- 1:11:37probably average size, but like a big one would be like 10
- 1:11:40billion. OK, so but that's, that's never
- 1:11:43been my goal. I've tried to keep what you
- 1:11:45said. I mean, I'm really focused on
- 1:11:47balance, fulfilling that need of kicking ass and growing, but
- 1:11:52also of being home to wash the boat at 2:00 on a Wednesday.
- 1:11:57It's OK if you, I'm not trying to, I'm realistic.
- 1:11:59I want to keep a lifestyle, but also I want to give a lifestyle
- 1:12:03to my family and my staff. And so so it's keeping that
- 1:12:07balance. So it's been good.
- 1:12:09So are you, you know, because I'm always thinking of scaling
- 1:12:13and I want to scale big company but also keep that balance too,
- 1:12:16like we we talk about. But what do you think the
- 1:12:17biggest mistake is that entrepreneurs make when they're
- 1:12:19trying to scale? Easy.
- 1:12:23I doubled my business the second I got rid of all the other
- 1:12:27companies. Easy.
- 1:12:29Entrepreneurs were so bad at starting new stuff, partnering
- 1:12:33with other people and little deals.
- 1:12:35Even if it's a minority partnership, it takes away from
- 1:12:38your core thing. The 2nd that I went from 5
- 1:12:41companies to two. I went from 5:00 to 2:00 and I
- 1:12:46went up 10 tenfold. And that is the serial problem.
- 1:12:50Almost every mastermind I go to they're they leave and they're
- 1:12:53like, oh, I should be doing that too.
- 1:12:55And because I it's congruent, it's it works with what my
- 1:12:58business line that I already have and I can sell this and I'm
- 1:13:01telling. Vertically integrated, that's.
- 1:13:03Right, that's the mad. Those are the magic words I'm
- 1:13:05telling you, the people that can scale and that want to make.
- 1:13:09If you want to make more money, take your thing that works and
- 1:13:12double down on it and get rid of all the other noise.
- 1:13:15I'm not a big proponent. There's a few people that can do
- 1:13:18it. You've interviewed some of them,
- 1:13:19and there's a few out there that can have multiple different
- 1:13:21companies at all. It's all about obviously your
- 1:13:24team, but also that takes away a lot of times from your time.
- 1:13:27And so stick with the one or two things and just do it so good,
- 1:13:32better than anybody else. You'll scale it easily.
- 1:13:36Did you scale primarily from doing roll ups and buying out
- 1:13:39other companies and things like that are mostly just.
- 1:13:41This is my first roll up, is happening right?
- 1:13:42Now, OK, I was going. To never done it before.
- 1:13:44Do you wish you would have done it sooner?
- 1:13:46Or? Yeah, I guess you don't know
- 1:13:47yet, because you haven't. Transitioned.
- 1:13:49Yeah, well, the easy answer is yes, because I'm going to almost
- 1:13:51double in assets with only 2000 clients.
- 1:13:53But it's all I know. And that's, you know, I'm, I'm
- 1:13:57still like I'm not the smartest guy.
- 1:13:59I don't have all the experience, but one thing's always worked
- 1:14:03for me, being good to people and working my ass off.
- 1:14:07And then you find good people. And so that's, that's what we
- 1:14:10do. Our clients like us.
- 1:14:11And if they don't, I care. I mean, we got a one star review
- 1:14:14once in the last year and we all get, we have all fives, but that
- 1:14:17one star review. I'm like, well, I want to talk
- 1:14:19to him. I want to know what's going on.
- 1:14:21And they're like, well, I'm not going to change it because
- 1:14:23you're just trying to get your well, I said, well, I still want
- 1:14:26to know, like if you're not going to change, I still want to
- 1:14:28I I still care about those things And, and maybe that's too
- 1:14:33much in the weeds, but that's, it's who we are.
- 1:14:35So that's that's what Horizons based on.
- 1:14:39Yeah, the service. That's why I started the
- 1:14:41company. Yeah, it matters.
- 1:14:43It matters to me too. It's like what would keep these
- 1:14:45up at night is like unhappy. Client, the one on the clap, not
- 1:14:47all the five stars you have, but the one you're like, what?
- 1:14:50You really had that experience. Yeah.
- 1:14:52And so then yeah, yeah, yeah, that happens.
- 1:14:54So people say to go find a job or career and do something you
- 1:14:58love. So is that what you did or did
- 1:15:01you do something better or I'm sorry, is that what you did or
- 1:15:03did you do something different? And why or why not?
- 1:15:06I truly don't believe. I think people, young people
- 1:15:11especially, it's almost like a diagnosis.
- 1:15:14It is a cancer. I believe to teach and train
- 1:15:17people, they should go and do what they love.
- 1:15:20And, and I don't mean that in a bad way.
- 1:15:21Like look for those people that are there is the like top couple
- 1:15:26percent that you want to be an NBA athlete and you got the
- 1:15:29talent like you knew love it. Go go do it, right.
- 1:15:33But for the rest of us who look, I wanted to be an NBA, right?
- 1:15:38I love it. I'm I wanted to play basketball.
- 1:15:40I thought I was I live in Chicago.
- 1:15:41I did my free throws in the winter like Michael Jordan did.
- 1:15:44Didn't work out and most of most people either read on social
- 1:15:48media, believe it from social media or people tell them go out
- 1:15:51and do what you love. I know more people in my life
- 1:15:55today that are successful entrepreneurs that are making so
- 1:15:59much money doing the strangest things that they did not think
- 1:16:04they were going to do. Case in point, I talk about
- 1:16:08self-directed Iras. Pretty boring.
- 1:16:13I raised taxes. Never in my life do I think I
- 1:16:18was new. I fell in love with the thing
- 1:16:21that lets me live my lifestyle. And I think it's it's a shame
- 1:16:27that people aren't willing to put in the work to fall in love
- 1:16:32with the thing that's potentially going to give them a
- 1:16:34lifestyle that they're looking for.
- 1:16:36It's not. That's how this world is.
- 1:16:39And my friend who owns a pallet company, he owns a pallet
- 1:16:42company who thinks they're going to have a pallet company living
- 1:16:47his best life. And, and, but it's because,
- 1:16:51because business is still business.
- 1:16:53It's numbers, it's it's leadership, it's working with
- 1:16:55people, it's scaling. So fill in the blank, whatever
- 1:16:58it is, if there's tables or waters, whatever fall, you can
- 1:17:03fall in love with what you do. You don't have to go out and do
- 1:17:07what you love. Yeah, I couldn't agree more.
- 1:17:11Yeah, I was just talking to somebody I was hiring.
- 1:17:14I was like, you know, I don't wake up every day like super
- 1:17:17excited to talk about capital stacks and construction and
- 1:17:21development and zoning and like all, you know, DSCR ratios and
- 1:17:26debt, like all these things, right?
- 1:17:29But it's the lifestyle that it can provide.
- 1:17:31It's the freedom that it could bring me.
- 1:17:32It's the peace that real estate has been able to create for me
- 1:17:36and that I know it can create for other people and that impact
- 1:17:39that I can help make in other people's lives.
- 1:17:40Because I had nothing. And I didn't just follow my
- 1:17:46passion of riding horses every day because I knew that that
- 1:17:49wasn't going to lead to the lifestyle.
- 1:17:51I would have had to be a trainer making minimum wage.
- 1:17:53And then I would have hated horses because my I could no
- 1:17:56longer enjoy my hobby, right? And I had to grind doing mucking
- 1:18:00stalls and riding all day for, for a little bit of pay.
- 1:18:04And so I couldn't agree more. It's falling and and you have to
- 1:18:07be able to fall in love with that journey and that process of
- 1:18:09creation and not get. So like my friend is a
- 1:18:13billionaire. I had 43 years old, 44 maybe.
- 1:18:18And he's garage doors, you know, like, did he wake up when they
- 1:18:22be like, I'm so passionate about garage doors, right.
- 1:18:24But leading a company just like you said, sales, marketing and
- 1:18:27operations. And you can become very
- 1:18:29passionate about something when you start to see what it can
- 1:18:32create in your life and in other people's lives and the impact
- 1:18:35that you can make regardless of what it is.
- 1:18:37Yeah, like Ishmael, I just told you about him who just sold his
- 1:18:42company. He's like, I'm just a plumber,
- 1:18:43bro, you know, and, and. OK, Yeah.
- 1:18:47Exactly, I love when people ask him what he is.
- 1:18:50He's like, I'm just a plumber bro.
- 1:18:52But that's a. Good idea, he loves plumbing
- 1:18:54now. So he.
- 1:18:56Was able to find passion that's right in that.
- 1:18:59So all right, So what are you most except what asset class are
- 1:19:05you most excited about right now?
- 1:19:06Are you still like gung ho on real estate?
- 1:19:08You see lots of opportunity there?
- 1:19:10Are you dabbling anything else? Is there anything that you're
- 1:19:12excited about with the world of AI and and all the changes going
- 1:19:15on? I'm really sticking to my guns
- 1:19:18because of 2008, yeah, to how I diversify and what I invest in.
- 1:19:23So I'm investing in whole life insurance policies.
- 1:19:28I'm investing because they're fixed and guaranteed and they're
- 1:19:30protected. I'm investing in real estate.
- 1:19:34I lend, I like to be the lender. I like fixed rate returns and
- 1:19:381st lien positions. I like double digit returns.
- 1:19:42And then so, you know, I'm answering your question in a
- 1:19:45really boring way, but then the last 15 to 20% of monies that I
- 1:19:50have, I am at the AI and add, you know, a little bit of
- 1:19:55crypto. Not at the moment, thankfully I
- 1:19:57got out at the right time. But anything, you know, new
- 1:20:00business ideas, people bring me different opportunities, but I
- 1:20:04used to be like reverse of all that.
- 1:20:05It was like 10 or 20%. Well, besides when I was lost
- 1:20:09everything reverse of all that. But, you know, partly it's with
- 1:20:12age and also seeing that, you know, deals go bad often when I
- 1:20:16say bad, they don't go as planned often.
- 1:20:19And these new things, you know, these new businesses.
- 1:20:21And so when I see new businesses, I get excited.
- 1:20:24I'm still like a junkie at heart where I love to like still be on
- 1:20:28the next, you know, Tesla and this, all this AI movement and
- 1:20:31all this automations happening, but I'm keeping it very minimal.
- 1:20:35So that's my, that's my answer for you is, is stay with what
- 1:20:39you know, invest in what you know, whatever that is.
- 1:20:41If it is plumbing in the plumbing industry or whatever it
- 1:20:44might be, invest in what you know and don't put too much in
- 1:20:47these other deals. Yeah, if you can't understand
- 1:20:50it, you shouldn't really probably be investing in it.
- 1:20:53So. But no, I know I don't.
- 1:20:55I, I haven't spent enough time and energy yet and all the AI
- 1:20:58stuff. But I mean, I'm around the
- 1:21:00coffee tables talking about it, but I'm not investing it.
- 1:21:02Yeah, yeah, I I do the same thing.
- 1:21:04I mean, especially in times of volatility like this, it's even
- 1:21:07a better time to double down on what you know and believe.
- 1:21:09Like, I'm super excited about real estate.
- 1:21:11You know, real estate's been hard to generate returns over
- 1:21:13the past few years, but due to the distress that we're starting
- 1:21:17to see in the markets, there's now opportunity and there's
- 1:21:20opportunity to buy distressed debt.
- 1:21:21There's opportunity to buy distressed deals and that's
- 1:21:23where you you clean. This is the time it's coming
- 1:21:26like this. It's on the brink.
- 1:21:28We've been talking about it being on the brink for like a
- 1:21:30year now. But I agree with you.
- 1:21:32I, I love real estate. It's definitely the place to be
- 1:21:35for a portion of portfolio. And I, I there's opportunity
- 1:21:38coming. Yeah, yeah.
- 1:21:40And I had asked you one question that that I should ask you, and
- 1:21:44I want to know the answer. We may have covered it earlier,
- 1:21:46but what's a major life lesson that you learned early on that
- 1:21:50still serves you well? I would say one that I haven't
- 1:21:53covered that I did think about earlier was the importance you
- 1:21:59and I were talking about balance of, of, you know, being a
- 1:22:03billionaire or whatever that means to you, whatever the
- 1:22:05number is and being a piece. And, and I think that one of the
- 1:22:12last things that really helped me scale my business, but also
- 1:22:15give me all the things we're talking about here, money and
- 1:22:18peace, was me understanding about 10 years ago that it's our
- 1:22:25job as an owner or founder to own your schedule, not the other
- 1:22:31way around. Almost all entrepreneurs are
- 1:22:34owned by their schedule. If there's an appointment, the
- 1:22:37big affiliate, the big, whatever it is big contact your, all of a
- 1:22:42sudden your schedule opens up. I'm really good about my times
- 1:22:47that I work, my days, that I work the hours that I work.
- 1:22:50My team knows it. So if you want to be truly
- 1:22:53focused and zone in and, and make more money, but have more
- 1:22:57peace, own your schedule. Specifically put on your
- 1:23:03calendar when you're working, when you're taking meetings and
- 1:23:05tell anyone that puts stuff on your calendar what that is.
- 1:23:08And once I did that, that was another game changer.
- 1:23:12It was, it was awesome. And all of a sudden I'm home
- 1:23:15more and I'm also making more money.
- 1:23:18Yeah. And, and I, I think most people
- 1:23:21forget that that you're the boss.
- 1:23:22Yeah, you can do that. So it's so good.
- 1:23:25I needed to hear that right now because I'm definitely working
- 1:23:27way too many hours at the moment, but everything's on the
- 1:23:30schedule, you know, and I put in the work blocks of focused work
- 1:23:33when I could have meetings, you know, now I started implementing
- 1:23:37Mondays and Fridays, no meetings so I could just be dialed in and
- 1:23:40focus because it's too easy to be busy and I get 1000 meeting
- 1:23:43requests a day. And they're all seem like great
- 1:23:45opportunities. And I'm just, that's been my
- 1:23:48hardest challenge is figuring out who to prioritize and say
- 1:23:51yes to or say no to. But I'm like, right now I'm
- 1:23:53booking into June. So I don't want that.
- 1:23:57Like I want to be able to have some freedom in my life where I
- 1:24:00can't take a trip this summer because I'm booking out into
- 1:24:03June. And yeah, exactly.
- 1:24:06And I'm like, I don't have to have him to plan for the trip
- 1:24:08because I'm in meetings all day. So yeah, it's, it's so important
- 1:24:11to own your, your schedule and not let your schedule own you.
- 1:24:14All right. So I always like to end with
- 1:24:16rapid fire School of hard knock style.
- 1:24:19How old were you when you became a millionaire?
- 1:24:2124. Beat me, I was 25.
- 1:24:26What type of business are you in?
- 1:24:27Business that I'm in, yeah, I'm going to finance for the
- 1:24:30financial space, self-directed space.
- 1:24:32What's the worst financial decision you've ever made?
- 1:24:35Putting it all in, investing every dollar and leveraging
- 1:24:39every dollar I owned. And what's the best financial
- 1:24:41decision you've ever made? Putting every dollar on me, my
- 1:24:45deal, I mean my business, betting on me and on someone
- 1:24:49else. Yeah, invest in yourself, Net
- 1:24:51bet on you. What do you think is the best
- 1:24:54book that every entrepreneur or aspiring entrepreneur should
- 1:24:57read? I'm just going to say something
- 1:24:59different. Recently, I used to be a very
- 1:25:03religious person. I'm not anymore, still very
- 1:25:07Christian, but I for the first time in the last six months, and
- 1:25:13this is not to be all religious, just so you know, I am reading
- 1:25:17the Bible from a business perspective.
- 1:25:21Me too. Really.
- 1:25:22They literally started. Yeah, I started reading.
- 1:25:25It totally changed the whole theme of the Bible for me.
- 1:25:27Oh my gosh, I actually have clawed.
- 1:25:31This is supposed to be your, your time to shine.
- 1:25:33But I have, I have clawed breaking down because I'm
- 1:25:36reading the Bible and I I've been, you know, getting closer
- 1:25:39with God. This isn't just a business
- 1:25:40thing. Like I have a relation with the
- 1:25:41Lord and I really value my faith.
- 1:25:43And yeah, so I'm sure we're going to get hate on this.
- 1:25:46I'm like, oh, you're manipulating the Bible, But no,
- 1:25:50so I have Claude. I read a scripture and so
- 1:25:53Claude's taking me through scripture, by scripture from
- 1:25:55page one of the Bible, every single scripture.
- 1:25:57And I say, please tell me how this Scripture can relate to my
- 1:26:00personal life and my business and my faith and who.
- 1:26:04Have not done that. That's exciting.
- 1:26:05Yeah. And so it goes like personal
- 1:26:07relationships, personal life to to yourself and to others, your
- 1:26:11business, how this shows up in leadership and execution and
- 1:26:15your faith in God and in your impact in the world.
- 1:26:18And it's amazing because like I, I love reading the Bible now
- 1:26:21because if I just open the Bible, I'm like, I don't
- 1:26:23understand what any of this stuff means and how does this
- 1:26:25relate to me? And it's just complicated.
- 1:26:27And the daily devotion is nice because it breaks it down in
- 1:26:29like normal terms, but it's more of just more personal stuff.
- 1:26:32But yeah, when AI is amazing to really help you break it down
- 1:26:36and translate. It I've not used AI with the
- 1:26:38scriptures yet. I'm going to do that, but this
- 1:26:42is the first time because I'm reading it from a different
- 1:26:44headspace, not because I felt like I was fulfilling a goal,
- 1:26:48right like, oh, I'm going to read the scriptures every day,
- 1:26:50right. And so it's like, you know, but
- 1:26:52now I'm like reading it from a business perspective because
- 1:26:55there's there's so many good stories and leaders and things
- 1:26:58they did that the leadership qualities are incredible and why
- 1:27:01they failed and didn't. And so it's that's my answer.
- 1:27:06The Bible. I love it.
- 1:27:07Yeah. There's so many amazing lessons
- 1:27:10of the Bible, and it's been here for us all along.
- 1:27:12I'm like, how come I never opened it and read it?
- 1:27:15It's like a manuscript for life and business and love and like,
- 1:27:17all these things. And I'm trying to go, you know,
- 1:27:19pay another coach over here. Yeah.
- 1:27:22That's funny. Well, good for you.
- 1:27:23Thanks for giving that share to me.
- 1:27:24I'm going to use AI with it. It's weird I use AI everywhere
- 1:27:27else but not there. That's.
- 1:27:28Good. Yeah.
- 1:27:28And it every day it just has the next scripture and the next
- 1:27:31lessons and I just pop it and it just sends me right at 8:00 AM
- 1:27:35every. Morning for that share I needed.
- 1:27:36That Yeah, of course. I love it.
- 1:27:38OK, what's one thing you think every American should do with
- 1:27:40their retirement account? Invest in real estate.
- 1:27:46Traditional 4-O1K or self-directed IRA.
- 1:27:49Self-directed, of course. Why?
- 1:27:52Is you're investing in what you understand and what you know,
- 1:27:55unlike investing in other people's deals that you have no
- 1:27:58idea only if you are an entrepreneur or someone who's
- 1:28:01going to read what they're investing in.
- 1:28:03Biggest money myth that needs to die.
- 1:28:05It's not about how much money you have on your balance sheet
- 1:28:10and it's not about being a billionaire.
- 1:28:13It's about living like a billionaire, living the life you
- 1:28:17want to live. And what does success mean to
- 1:28:21you in one sentence? Easy.
- 1:28:28We've been saying it the whole time.
- 1:28:29Peace. Yeah, peace.
- 1:28:32If you could send one text to your 25 year old self, what
- 1:28:35would it say? Love harder and let those around
- 1:28:41you know how you feel. And if you could leave one
- 1:28:44message to the younger generation, what would it be?
- 1:28:47Work harder and those around you, which is not very hard, but
- 1:28:52if you just do more and build honest true relationships, you
- 1:28:58will become a millionaire within years.
- 1:29:01Relationships and hard work. That is the recipe for success
- 1:29:05every time. Yep, I love it.
- 1:29:07Well, thank you so much Greg, you're awesome.
- 1:29:09How can people get a hold of you, set up their self-directed
- 1:29:13Iras and to follow you on Instagram, all the things.
- 1:29:16Just just there's only one Greg Herlene.
- 1:29:18There's there's no my name is not or you'll find my son, maybe
- 1:29:21Carson, but just just follow me or or.
- 1:29:24Instagram. With you, yeah, Instagram is
- 1:29:26great. At Greg Herlene.
- 1:29:27At Greg Herlene. Yep, that's it.
- 1:29:29Cool. Horizon Trust Company, thanks so
- 1:29:31much for coming out to Arizona and coming on the show, and it
- 1:29:33was awesome. Thanks for having me.