Next Level 276: What are the safest asset classes in today's market? With Paul Moore

What would I invest in if I had one thing to invest in for the next hundred years? Well, multifamily would certainly be near the top of my list, especially in this coming decade.

Welcome to the Next Level Income show, where it's our goal to take your income, your investments and your life to the next level. I'm your host, Chris Larson. If you haven't yet, get a copy of our book for free at our website, nextlevelincome.com. that's www.nextlevelincome.com. just click on the book link and I'll even send you a copy if you put your address in. Today we have a special podcast with my friend Paul Moore of Wellings Capital. Paul is going to talk about his journey, which is really anything but ordinary. He had a career at Ford Motor Company. He co founded a staffing firm which he sold at the age of 33 before transitioning into a career in commercial real estate where he's made a lot of different mistakes as well as massive success that he's going to talk about today. He also hosted a podcast, how to Lose Money, and he's been a guest on over 300 podcasts. We're going to talk about where we are in the economy today, what the best area in his opinion of real estate you can invest in today. And we're also going to talk about a mission that he is on that is near and dear to both his heart is my heart on today's podcast. So stay tuned. You'll be able to learn a lot and you also get some great information and learn how to get free copies of both our books on today's podcast. Paul, it's always good to see you, my friend. Thanks for coming back on the show.

Chris, what an honor to be here. Thank you for having me back.

Absolutely. Yeah. You have a wonderful story. You got several different things that you're working on. I know she's. It's been, it's been a few years since you've been on, I think back in 2021. It's been a long time and we were just recounting that. I vividly recall that conversation in that podcast and some of our listeners might too. But man, the world of commercial real estate's changed a lot. And, you know, it's great to have you back on to kind of get your insights into, into where we are in the commercial market and, you know, what kind of your outlook is for the future. But I would love for you to share a little bit about your background, Paul, before we we dive into the business side of things.

Okay, great. Well, I'm old, so it takes a while to share it. I'll try to skim it real quick. So I had my own staffing company, sold it to a small public company in 97. I found myself at 35, 3, 34, thinking like, I, I, I'm the, I'm a, I'm a serial entrepreneur now and I'm a full time investor. I thought, you know, and I found out I was really a shiny object chaser and a speculator. That's what I was, Chris.

Yeah.

And I made a ton of mistakes, lost a ton of money, had to basically start over 10 years later. But, you know, I'm really thankful for those mistakes because now it has help helped us, my company, Wellings Capital, and me to be super, super careful and really much, much more diligent and much more hopefully wise than we would have been if it hadn't been for those mistakes. You might recall a podcast called how to Lose Money. And I do, yeah, yeah. We explored lots of mistakes and losses and pain and failures. And so anyway, yeah, that's, I went from years of residential real estate about 11 years to now 14 years of commercial. Went from multifamily to now managing eight different multi asset, multi geography funds.

Yeah, no, I love it. And yeah, and you, I love, I love that title, your podcast, how to Lose Money. Because you know, one of the, one of the things that we try to teach our boys is that failure is okay as long as you learn from it. And then one of our other sayings is you're not stupid unless you make the same mistakes repeatedly. So what are some of the big lessons you learned as an entrepreneur and as an investor that really helped you form the foundation of your current thesis?

Paul, I've heard this first lesson from so many different angles. One of them is one of my minority business partners. Barry ran for governor of his state about eight years ago and he said he rubbed shoulders with billionaires. And he said what? He came back to me, he's like, you know, they're not that much smarter than us. They don't, they're not that better connected, well educated. The difference is they got their sight set very clearly at a very young age on one thing. And they pursued that one thing with great intensity.

Yeah.

And you, you know, Gary Keller and Jay Bazon, in their classic book, the One Thing.

The One Thing, yeah. Say great book.

Yeah, it is. They said you have to say no to a thousand or maybe ten thousand distractions to say yes to your one thing.

Yes. Great quote. Yeah.

Yeah. Warren Buffett and Charlie, not Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett and Bill Gates met at a dinner for the very first time. And they were all each asked by Bill's mother to down the Secret of Success on a piece of paper. And they traded those and they both had the same answer. And that was focus.

Yeah.

So that's my lesson. And if I had to do over again, I would have, I mean, if I could have ideally had a crystal ball, I would have chosen commercial real estate at a very young age and just stayed in that lane for, you know, four decades rather than jumping around literally probably 20 times in my early years, years, and then always having to start over with a new learning curve. Huge mistake. And. But I hope people can learn my mistakes now.

No, I, I love that book. I love the, the book. The one thing. If you're listening and you've not read that book, go order it, go pick it up, download it, listen to it, or put it on your reading list to be up next. And when I do, I'm, I'm going through my. Where as we record this, we're coming up on the end of Q3, and at the top of my quarterly planning, it says, I've got one line, it says, what is the one thing that you could do that would make everything in your life or business easier? And that's one of the other quotes from the book. So that's always how I start my, my planning, my focus for, you know, the next quarter, the next year. So I absolutely love that. And obviously I love commercial real estate, as the audience knows. Paul, we've seen a lot, I talk a lot on the show about the real estate cycle, and we've got a lot of new investors. We see people that haven't been through cycles in the past. You've seen the savings and loan crisis, if not in real estate, in the business world, I watch my parents lose their jobs in the savings and loan Crisis. I watched 9 11. I saw the great financial crisis. I'm seeing what we're going through now. You know, I, you know, one of the things that I think is, you know, you pick something and as an investor, you know, some investors have been burned recently in commercial real estate. But I have investors that have been with us for 10 years, and they say, you know, we've had great deals, we've had good deals. We've had, you know, some deals go sideways, but I'm in it for the long haul. That's what our sophisticated investors Say, you know, they pick a thesis and stick to it. We what are your thoughts on where we are in the market? And you know, has that changed your thesis on commercial real estate?

Yeah. I have a hard time answering this question because I've got a couple different sirs, but one I will tell you, and this is a little shocking. I didn't believe it for a while, but then I finally concluded it true. So Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger claim that they in 60 years of investing together, never had a conversation about where we are in the economy when making an investment and divestment or, or divestment decision.

Huh.

Thinking of a related quote that they relayed which was Peter lynch from Fidelity fame said those who live by a crystal ball are destined to eat glass.

That's. I like that one. Yeah.

Howard Mark said there's no use in trying to figure out, you know, the top or the bottom of any cycle. Let's just be, let's just invest as wisely as we can for where we are now.

Yeah.

And so those are all some related concepts that go into this.

Can I add one to that? I think it was Templeton that said, you know, I, I never try to time the top or the bottom of the market like exactly. Because you're going to miss out. So, and I'm paraphrasing, I have to go back that exact quote, but you know, again, you know, another famous, you know, historical investor, very, very similar philosophy. Yeah.

Yeah. So I, I didn't really believe that Buffett Munger never had a discussion about the economy. So I dug a little deeper and I, I, I'm concluded that they, why would they lie? But you know, here's a funny little side note. If you, if you cut Sir Hathaway's price by 99%, meaning if it was $100 a share, you cut it down to a dollar a share.

Yeah.

It would still wallop the S&P 500 by like 40% over the last 60 years. Wow. So they probably know something that most people don't.

Yeah.

Anyway, their thesis was let's just invest in durable products that would be, you know, assets that are hopefully recession resistant. Great product with a long Runway. Run a super capable management teams. And that's obvious what that means.

Yeah.

With heavy intrinsic value. In other words, at a price far below the potential value of the property, the project.

Yeah.

Or the stock in their case. How that translates to commercial real estate is, you know, let's look for recession resistant asset types. There's no recession proof types, but that means, you know, like, what would I invest in if I had one thing to invest in for the next hundred years? Well, multifamily would certainly be near the top of my list, especially in this coming decade. My goodness, the statistics are stunning.

Seven million unit shortage.

Yeah, it is amazing.

I mean affordability at all time lows.

Absolutely. I specifically like workforce housing, which includes mobile home parks, which is a form of multifamily. So I would look for that type of asset run by capable managers. Of course, we all know that a great operator can save a bad or mediocre deal, but a terrible operator can ruin the best deal on the planet.

Absolutely.

So great man teams. And then third, of course, with intrinsic value. Where do you get intrinsic value? You often get it, of course. Buffett said price what you pay. Value is what you get. Where do you get intrinsic value? Well, there's. You can't always get this, but sometimes and even often you from buying from mom and pop operators. Yeah, that's operators who don't have the desire, the knowledge or the resources to increase the. To improve the property, to maximize income and to completely, you know, to optimize value in the long run for invest. So if you can find a deal like that, and if you ask me, I will take, I'll give you a few examples, but if you can, I'll ask you. Okay, so if you can find a deal and with those three aspects, you can do that deal in any economy and you win. There's no guarantee you'll ever win, by the way, but you can have a likelihood of winning. A perfect example. Of course we all know in hindsight that Covid did not destroy the world the way we thought maybe March of 2020, that it could. February 2020, we invested in a. We're the largest investor in a 7.1 million dollar mobile home park. About half debt, half equity. The owner had not visited the property in at least five years. Rents had not been raised anywhere near market levels. They were 35% below market. Utilities were all being for some reason paid by the owners, not the owner of the park. And there were all kinds of other huge, huge missteps on this property. Yeah, well, anyway, it was acquired for 7.1 million. A week later there was an offer to this to our friend, the buyer of nine and a half million. And I said, take it run. You'll have like a million percent irr and you can avoid this crisis that who knows if it's going to destroy everybody. And he's like, no, no, I'm Going to stay the course. Very Buffett thinking he's read Buffett's biography like 21 times. He said, no, hang on, I think It'll be worth 13 million in three years, which would have been a massive win. So he hung on. He did like four of the six value ads that needed to be done. Not the biggest, not the hardest, but the four easiest. And he got an offer of, get this, Chris, 15 million within 10 months.

Amazing.

So he sold it and we got like a, I mean, IRR is deceiving. You can't eat IRR. But yeah, we got a 340% IRR in 10 months.

Amazing. Yeah.

And the point is, because it was a, you know, again, a durable asset run by a, you know, acquired by a fantastic operator and with incredible intrinsic value. Yeah, it was a win. And there's, I could spend two hours telling you stories like that and I know you could too. So that's my answer. I didn't even start answer your question. But.

Well, no, let's, well, let's, let's, let's dig deeper into that because you, you brought up value add and you know, a lot of longtime listeners are familiar about it because I talk about it, you know, in my book, which if you haven't gotten it, go to nextlevelincome.com grab a free copy. But I walk through the value add strategy that, that you and I have employed in multifamily and mobile home parks and self storage and all these things. And you mentioned intrinsic value. Is that, is that limited to the value add strategy? Is that your preferred strategy or what are some other, you know, types of strategies in commercial real estate? But let's actually, let's dig into what value add is first. You know, if you look at the spectrum of commercial real estate, we can develop real estate from the ground up. We can buy core assets like a lot of life insurance companies do and REITs do. But value add is a little different. And you mentioned we, you did four out of six of the quote unquote value add projects. How is value add different? Because I'm a big fan of the Intelligent Asset Allocate and Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham, which is the thesis or the genesis of the thesis of, of Buffett's investment theory.

Yeah. So we've got development.

Yeah.

Which would be the highest risk and the potentially, potentially potential highest return. And you know, I, we're always looking at what it, not what the return is, but what's the risk adjusted return. I would argue that often that the risk adjusted Return for development is pretty low. Part of my reason, a quote from Munger on this, it's not a super well known quote but he said though he liked real estate unlike. But Munger said the, the most successful real estate development owners are the third owners and the first owner goes bankrupt. The second owner is the bank and the third owner buys it for 50 cents on the dollar from the bank and finally makes it profitable. And I was part of a development deal like that in a sort of previous life. I wasn't the developer, but I was close, very, very closely working with the developer and it's exactly what happened. Yeah, the third owner is doing really well.

But yeah, we're buying some deals like that now which, you know, the owners are forced to sell in today's market due to, due to the, the interest rate environment, inability to get the leverage and the loans where they are. We're buying a deal in Houston right now at 20% discount as a matter of fact. Very, very similar. I don't know if we're the third owner, but in the, in that, in that cycle we would be.

Yeah. Another type of strategy is core or, I don't know, even a strategy. It's a type of asset, but a core or core plus which would be generally stabilized. You know, Chris, a lot of people think that's the safest deal, but is it really, is it really the safest? I, I don't know if it is. I, I kind of feel like value add. So core, you know, basically you're just buying cash flow. The problem is with a shock to the economy or the occupancy or the, you know, the, the rental prices over supply in the market. It can easily be underwater, especially if there's a lot of debt on it. So you know, so that's a core plus course and of course then there's value add and your, your listeners know well what that is.

Yeah.

And the value add of course creates this most important thing which is a margin of safety between the debt payments and the net operating income. And that margin of safety, as measured in one measurement at least is the debt service coverage ratio. And you can get a very, very high debt service coverage ratio from value add just continually improving the income. So those are some of the strategies there, I think.

Yeah, so let's, yeah, let's, let's take that one step further. So value add strategy go in and one of the, one of my favorite things about value add real estate is the ability to, to force the appreciation through some of these things. And I think you know, I think as you're alluding to you, when you develop a property, you're, you're speculating on the future value of that when you, when you complete it. And if you sell them to the right market, like you said, it can be phenomenal returns if you're, you have a core asset. There's not a lot of value add, quote, unquote projects. You know, it's a, it's a, maybe a newer property, you can buy it. You know, it's got established tenant tenants in there or residents in terms of multifamily, and they're, they're just, you know, paying and you're getting, you know, maybe a 6% cash flow and you're just banking on those rents to go up effectively with deflation. But we've seen the past couple of years, rents have been flat or even down in some markets. Like Austin's been, you know, seen, you know, real drops. Some areas in Florida have seen some real drops. Atlanta's seen some real drops in terms of rental prices in the market. But in value add, you're going in and you're, you're making improvements, exterior improvements, interior improvements, and you're able to improve the property and, and increase the rents or, you know, same thing, increase the occupancy. Mobile home parks have a lot typically, you know, multiple more variables which you can. And different, you know, even different things you can do with financing and, and you know, homes that are owned right. By the tenants versus owned by the park as well.

Yeah, right. My favorite value add explanation is actually self storage. I'm not saying it's the best, but it's. There's so many things people might not have thought of. I, I outlined this. I've never run a self storage facility, but I invest in them. So I wrote a book for bigger pockets in 2021, and the, in the book, I described like a dozen value ads people might not have thought of. And quickly those would include, hey, I got six acres out back, I shouldn't do it that way. I got six acres out back and we're not doing anything with it. Okay, great, thank you. And you know that maybe you could grab gravel or pave it and maybe do boat storage, RV storage, commercial truck parking, industrial or construction equipment storage. So much you could do with six acres. You had the location. You could build more units. Of course.

Yeah.

Another thing would be a Celtic release if you have six acres out back. Another thing would be a billboard out front. They're incredibly profitable in the right location. A propane filling station. How about an atm? How about setting up a little office or using the office you have to sell locks, boxes, tape, scissors. How about running a U Haul operation? Some of those generate 3,000amonth, some of them 10,000amonth. Let's just say it's 3,000amonth. That's 36,000 a year in net operating income added. I'm assuming, you know, net 36.

Sure, yeah.

Divide that. Of course, using your value add strategy. The value equals the net income. Net operating income divided by the cap rate of 36,000 a year divided by 6% I believe, gives you 600,000 in increased value. That's just for signing a lease with U Haul and setting up an operation.

Yeah.

Of course there's the obvious value adds, like you know, raising rents, increasing occupancy. Some of the value add deals we bought or that we've invested in, they didn't even have a website. And some of them had 100 occupancy, which is usually a big mistake in self storage. It probably tells you your way under pricing your units. So many more things you can do in self storage.

Yeah, which, and going back to what you said in the beginning, that all hinges on operations. So you've got to have a great operator that's able to execute on those strategies and do them in a timely fashion as well to do that. So no, that's, that's our, that's our favorite strategy. That's our core strategy. If you're listening your head spinning from the cap rate analysis, it's, it's in my book. You can go and review that and figure it out. So Paul, you've, you've shifted from individual assets, as you said, to you know, more of a fund structure. Why did you decide to do that?

Yeah, so we had tried to be, and you asked about where we are in the economy from 2012 to 2022. As many people know, multifamily got very, very popular. Syndication got very, very popular. You know, a lot of gurus grew up in that time and became, you know, really known and, and they, you know, they, they raised a lot of money and a lot of people, you know, we're a, we're overpaying for assets, especially in multi family. And we found out that we were outbid continually. My mentor who, you know, encouraged us not to overpay, not to use risky floating rate debt.

And great, great lessons, great rules.

Yeah, yeah. And so we just kept out bid, I mean for years, continually outbid. And so I would just say we were Effectively a failed multi family operator. We didn't have inside track apparently to get those off market deals and we weren't willing to overpay. You know, there was a sense of speculation when everybody's buying, just hoping to sell it to the next person for more 18 months later and double investors money. And I'm not criticizing that. My friends, I have friends and competitors who made literally millions and millions of dollars doing that. But those things have an end to them. You know, like the, you know the, the tulip bulb run up if you've heard of that from the. Oh yeah, hundreds. And maybe it was.

I would, yeah, I would, I would, I would say 16. Yes. Dutch tulip bulb.

Yeah, that's it.

Right? It was the late 1600s.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, and Buffett was criticized, 99, terribly criticized for not jumping on the tech boom which became a burst bubble two years later and he won again. Yeah, Buffett, I'd rather invest in Wrigley's gum than in the Internet because I, I know how people will be chewing gum next decade. I have no idea where the Internet will be. And he was right again. But at any rate, we were, we just finally said, wait a minute, this is not working. We have to find a new business or we're going to have to find a different way to do it. We decide the best way for us to do it would be to find the best operators we can again using Buffett's second of those three principles. Let them pick the best deals they can find. The first of Buffett's three principles, hopefully having intrinsic value and we invest heavily with them. We also wanted diversification. So we said let's diversify across different asset types, geographies, operators, different places in the capital stack, which we hadn't thought of until years later. And so here we are now with eight funds and 210 million under management and we, we don't operate anything ourself.

Yeah, no, I love it. And you give your investors options and diversity as well. And you brought up something which, you know, we've, we've taken to as well. We have a private credit fund and I think investors have, most, most investors have heard of diversification and you know, diversifying across, you know, at least some assets and you don't need a ton in the stock market to really get effective diversification. That's, that's, that's something that we're not going to dive too deep into. But investors say, oh yeah, I'm going to invest in multifamily. I'm Going to invest in self storage, I'm going to invest in mobile home parks, I'm going to invest in industrial. But most investors are limited to common equity. At the bottom of the capital stack, you typically have the primary lender of the bank. One of the reasons we like private credit is we're coming in in a second or preferred equity position in a, in a low leverage position and doing that to give investors, you know, diversification across the equity stack in terms of depth versus just breadth. Can you speak a little bit to that as well?

Yeah. So we had a whole bunch of investors who found out where we were investing and they said, well, we really don't need you, we can just go around you. And our argument was, sure you absolutely can. However, we're getting a much better split, like an 8020 split when you would only get a 60 40. But nevertheless, yeah, they still had a great point. And so that was going on. We also were coming into this environment in 2022-2025 where interest rates were so high and the debt markets were drying up in many cases and the amount of equity they raised, common equity was dropping a lot. And so there was this gap in the capital stack. Instead of getting a 75% loan, they might only get 55. Instead of raising the 25 that they used to, they might only be able to raise 20%. Now there's this. What does that leave a 25, 30% gap in the middle of the capital stack.

Yeah.

And so we were coming in with preferred equity. It was the same thing Buffett did. Well, similar to what he did Goldman Sachs in September 2008. He came in not with regular equity, with preferred.

Yeah.

And he got a 10 current pay and then a compounding accruing upside. And that's what we, that's almost exactly what we've been doing for the last three years.

Yeah.

And so that's, that's been helpful. We don't any rescue capital whatsoever. But we do bring prep equity to deals.

Yeah, no, I love it and I think it's a great area especially for those investors that, you know, require higher income today. I think it's, it's a real value for those versus those investors that are valuing growth and are maybe okay with a little less cash flow but are looking for, you know, a higher end multiple. I think investors have seen that as cash flows have been compressed in common equity in the interest rate and cost environment that we're in. So I love that we're going to get into your business, Paul, but something that is, is, is important to me. It's important to you. That I'd like to talk about because I know, you know, you're not just an entrepreneur, you know, you're not just a real estate investor, but you're also a philanthropist. You have, you have different things that, that are very meaningful to you. And I think I was, we were talking about an individual that, that I met at a, at a, at a summit at a conference here this past week. And the first part of his talk, he talked about how he scaled his fund to. About it was a $38 billion fund, I think is what, what they ended up being in. And he was in real estate. So he talked about kind of some of the keys to getting there. And the first thing he brought up was the importance of charity, of putting that in front and how that, how that drove. And actually this individual, you can look him up on the Internet. He was the producer and the inspiration behind the movie Sound of Freedom, which if you have not watched it, I encourage you to check it out. Sound of Freedom, which is, it's widely available out there and it's a cause that he has that's also very similar to one that you support. Paul, do you mind sharing a little bit about that for our audience?

Yeah. One of my heroes is William Wilberforce and a whole lot of people listening have not heard of him. I recommend go check out the 2007 movie on his life, Amazing Grace. It needed to be a 10 hour movie to cover his life, but it was not. It covered one aspect of his multifaceted life and that is he ended the slave trade and then eventually ended slavery in the United Kingdom, which spilled over to the whole west, including the U.S. yeah.

Most people don't know that, that the end of slavery started in the UK and then, you know, there's a lot of slavery still today. But that's a, that's a cool little, little fact about history there.

Yeah, it's true. I mean, he gave his wealth, he gave his health, he gave his relationships, he gave everything for this cause that he was so committed to. He was a young wild man. Like he was, you know, a very heavy partier as a young man. And he came face to face with two things. First of all with God, and secondly with the slave trade and the horrors of it. And so he decided to do something about it. Tragically, Chris, Here we are 200 years later with the most enslaved people in world history at about 50 million.

Yeah.

In fact, if you took the record, not the average, the rec profits of Nike, ExxonMobil and Walmart added those record profits together and triple that number. That's the approximate profitability of human trafficking every year.

And the cartels, everybody thinks drugs, but the human trafficking is, is as or even bigger component of what the cartels are doing.

Yeah, and the Sound of Freedom movie explained exactly why that is. Yeah, those are used up in one day. People are used up over and over multiple times a day over maybe years. And it's so tragic. And so we decided we wanted to do something about it. So Wellings Capital, just like we research operators and deals, we researched non profits and there were so many great ones. What we found one we really like called aim a I am f r e e aimfree.org is their website and.

Put that in the show notes here.

Almost $900,000 for them in the last four years.

Amazing.

And we would really recommend people go to aimfree.org or aimfree.org wellings of course our company doesn't get a penny of that but it goes straight to AIM and we're so glad to be part of this fight. They free little girls, little kids in Cambodia for only a thousand dollars per child. Their last raid was freed 40 little kids and nine. It put nine bad guys behind bars. And so there's a lot more money and time and resources needed to house, feed, clothe, get counseling for those kids. But thousand dollars initially will free a child and change their whole life.

And yeah, and that's, I mean the, the amount of impact that you can have with that amount of money. I mean, you know, we spend $1,000 on going out to eat every month. So if you're listening, please, I just put it in the show notes here. Aim freedom.org wellings with two Ls. Yeah, please, please check that out. Regardless of, you know, what, what you're doing out outside and you're, you're giving and different things, it's something that my eyes were, were open to the scale of this and really the horror of it through firsthand stories. So I appreciate you, you sharing that Paul.

Thanks for the chance.

Absolutely, absolutely. And you know you brought up something else. You mentioned you know in the movie Amazing Grace talking about, you know, the what changed which was, you know, God and the horrors of slavery. That that's the other thing that this gentleman brought up was the important, the importance of a higher power and believing that. And we've, I'll say this because of the time that we're recording this, it's actually a week almost to the Minute when Charlie Kirk was killed. Any, any thoughts there, Paul?

Yeah, you know, I met Charlie four years ago at an event and I did not follow him, did not know him that well. My wife did, other family members did. But like a lot of other people, I was obviously provide at what happened a week ago. And my wife said, let's send him a check. Let's. Let's help Turning Point usa. And I'm like, I don't know. I mean, you know, a lot of times these movements die with the followers death. But when Erica Kirk got online, incredible Saturday night and spoke and, you know, so fiercely spoke to the camera in the world, I turned to Elaine and my wife and said, this movement's going to survive. Here's something some people might not know, this might be widely known by the time this podcast comes out. So a friend of mine was one of the mentors for Charlie when he was 19 or 20 years old, and he's pretty close to the organization. He said that, you know, Charlie had made a goal just, I think it was just a month or two ago. Did you hear this? That he wanted 30, 000 chapters and they only had like 3, 200 chapters, if I recall. Yeah.

Because I think we have what, 20, about 26, 000 schools.

Yeah.

In the country. Colleges, high schools, I might not be precise on number. And he wanted a chapter in each. In each school, right? Yeah, yeah.

So Adam, his chief of staff or operations guy, said, Charlie, time out. You want, how Many? You want 30, 000 chapters? We only have like again, let's say.

Yeah, it was about 3,000. Yeah.

And Charlie said, yeah. And of course, the world knows this by now, probably, but there have been, as of Monday, there were 37, 000 applications for new chapters. And I heard a rumor today, but not substantiated, that it might be over 50, 000 applications today.

I. I would, Yeah, I don't know what the current number is, but I'm sure everybody will hear it. And I saw, I saw Erica's speech with my wife and I couldn't. I couldn't even talk during it. It was so moving. I had my boys, my teenage boys watch it as well.

Right.

And yeah, I learned, I learned of him. I'd heard of him, but my 15 year old came home one day, or actually he was. He mentioned him, he might even been 13 at the time, a little over a year ago, and said, oh, do you know who this guy is? I was like, yeah, I've heard of him. And he told me he was watching him. I said, well, I gotta watch. Who is this guy that's influencing my son? I need to know more about him. So I started seeing some of his stuff and I was, I mean, you can't not be impressed, no matter what you think of his beliefs, by the energy that he had. And my son was the second one to text me when he was shot. And, and that night I was flying home and we brought him home. He's, he stays at his school, he's at a boarding school. And he came home that night and he told me that he, he, he and his friends watched Charlie Kirk every day. And I don't know if I've seen it now with the reaction from around the world, but the impact that he had on this youth was incredible. But yeah, I think I'm going to tie this together because, you know, one of the things that our mission here at Next level income is education, opportunities for financial independence. But what we do is we challenge conventional wisdom in terms of finances. So if you're an alternative investor, you know the importance of challenging, you know, the status quo and being able to, to listen to differences from convention. And I think it's just so important for us to continue to be opening to debate and listening to alternative opinions because that's how we grow in this world and that's what Charlie did. So, yeah, thanks for sharing your thoughts on that, Paul. We don't talk a lot about things like this on, on the show, but I think it actually does tie into the world of alternate investing. And on that note, Paul, you have an amazing company. You've built an amazing company for, you know, not yourself. You've built an amazing company for investors. So how can our listeners learn more about Wellings Capital and what you guys are doing?

Yeah, you can go to my website, our website, wellingscapital.com that's w e l l I n g s capital dot com. And if you want a free ebook on a mobile home park investing, RV park investing, self storage, if you want access to the ebook of my multifamily book, which is not as good as Chris Larson's, of course.

I used yours as inspiration when I wrote mine. Paul, come on.

Yeah, right. Just because I'm older than you. But you can go to wellingscapital.com resources.

Awesome. Paul, it's always good to see you, my friend. Thank you so much for taking your time and sharing your experiences, your lessons and your wisdom with our audience.

Chris, what an honor to be here again. Thank you so much.

Hey, Chris, here again. I hope you found this episode valuable. Now I have one more thing to give to you. We have a page for my coaching clients where you can get a free copy of my book as well as much more from previous guests on the show. Just check out nextlevel income.com coaching to get a free copy of my book, audiobook and much more. I'll send you a copy of my book and cover all the shipping costs as a thank you for listening to the podcast. Also, please like share and take just 90 seconds to give us a rating on Apple Podcasts.