The Wealth Hacker: Unlocking Financial Freedom with Dave Wolcott

Hey, you're an entrepreneur, a business owner. I'm sure you are likely or have struggled with building real wealth. You might be investing all of your earnings back in your business. And because you trust it, I mean, that's something I've done for a long time. Well, I brought someone onto the podcast today that shows there's a completely different way to think about investing. So in this episode, Dave Wolcott is here. He's a former Marine and For the last 20 plus years, he's been working on and has already cracked the code on how to build wealth, like the top 1%. That's what he talks about on this episode. And before we start the episode, because this is going to go deep, there's a lot of cool strategies and even calculations that you can run for yourself. I urge you to go chat with my AI clone. It's all cloned on every episode of this show. Over 600, including this one with Dave Wolcott. So if you go to hustleandflowchart.com clone C L O N E, you can literally type, voice call or even do a FaceTime type thing with my clone and ask about this episode or other episodes. We can literally go deep and start coaching yourself based off of the information you learn here. So go to hustleave flowchart.com clone go check it out. Enjoy the episode.

Hey, before we jump into the episode today, I want to shout out one of our partners, HubSpot, and they have been tackling this customer service dilemma. They have a brand new service hub from HubSpot. It's a whole new platform that's combining service and support together in a single platform to deliver the best possible experience, not only for your customers, but for your team by freeing up their time. Everything is AI powered, so this thing's a big win win. It improves everybody's experience and has them coming back for more. What you got going on, go check it out for yourself over@HubSpot.com service. Now onto the episode. All right, Dave, I'm happy that we made this happen. It's been, what, months in the making, I feel like. And I'm happy for that too, because you've kind of indoctrinated me into your way of thinking with holistic wealth and the strategy and lifestyle that you live wasn't always that way, from what I understand. But it's. You were just sharing a trip that you just went on and that's part of the whole lifestyle change that you made. So I wanted to highlight that here. I thought it's fascinating. My brain's shifted, what, the last 6ish months or so, we've been working together on some stuff.

Yeah.

So thanks for joining today.

Yeah, I appreciate that, Joe. Really grateful to be here, connect with you and your audience.

Yeah, man. And so you're. And I'll just say it now, you have a way of approaching business life, wealth differently. And you know, I mentioned holistic right off the bat, so not. Those don't normally seem to go together. You know, when you're talking about financial stuff and holistic, you know, you're thinking it's typically separate. How would you, how would you define that? And then I want to walk back to like, what previous Dave maybe how, how he thought.

Yeah, for sure. It's really a great question. Right. And I love the psychology of really thinking about wealth, what it really means to people. You know, we use the buzzword financial freedom a lot, but I think people don't really, you know, unpack it further than that. Right. You know, and it's really, you know, I think Dan Sullivan. Right. Says it really well. Right. Which is we're looking for, you know, not only freedom of money, but. But we're looking for freedom of purpose, to wake up every day and be fascinated and motivated about the work we're doing. We want freedom of time, right? To spend our time, live life intentionally. We want freedom of relationships, to work with great people on our projects, our partners, our families and friends. So I think really encompassing some of these freedoms, I think is truly what leads to a fulfilling life. And then if you break down wealth a little bit further, right. The ultra wealthy understand this really well. And, you know, once you get to a point in wealth, you know, having more financial capital isn't going to materially change your life. Right. So what are the other things? Right. And so we like to look at it as different phases of capital. So you've got your financial capital, right? But you've also got your intellectual capital, right? The things, you know, your financial iq, you know, your mindset iq, you know, all of those things. You've also got your physical capital, right? How strong is your health? Look at Steve Jobs. He had all the money in the world. He couldn't pay for another day, right? So that is so important. We've got emotional capital, we've got spiritual capital, Right? And these other dimensions of capital to really make you, you know, live a fulfilled life.

That's a good way to define it. And that's where.

And I guess there's not a. Would you call that the definition of freedom then, because you kind of all the different aspects, the time, the relationship purpose is, it's a different definition or a way of thinking than most people would. It's usually kind of vague, it seems like.

Yeah, I think, you know, a lot of people haven't really quite thought through it. And the other thing is it, it's different to all of us. Right. You know, your, you know, main goal could be some kind of philanthropic mission. You know, maybe it's to, you know, impact, you know, more people or maybe it's to spend more time with your family and travel the world. Right. I mean, you know, everyone has kind of, you know, different goals and definitions of what that means. But I think the more you can kind of break away from this concept of just thinking that wealth is measured by the size of your bank account, you know, not only are you going to actually simultaneously increase that financial capital, but you're going to, you know, be able to live that really that true fulfillment. Right. And that one money can buy. Right? Money can buy time. Right. Money can buy some of the things that you do want to do.

This goes back to the wealth and the health of us physically and you know, everything else. It's all interconnected and again the holistic part of it just makes a lot of sense then. Now I'm curious, did, did Dave, before this whole shift, because you what you've been in doing business for about 20 years, I believe, you know, for yourself, but you had a whole previous life in the military, in the Marines. Did you have any of this mindset that back then way of thinking, like how, how did you operate that in that kind of container?

Yeah, sure Joe. So you know, really my background started, I was raised in a middle class family in Connecticut. And I was told that the for success, like many of us were taught, was to go to school, get good grades, you're going to get a job and then climb the corporate ladder. And that was success, right? That was the recipe for success. So I started down that path, had the opportunity to do the ROTC program and serve my country in the Marine Corps in the early 90s and learn some things in the Marines. They just don't teach it anywhere else. Things such as leadership, teamwork, integrity. Right. Not to mention being combat tested was interesting as well. But then after the Marine Corps, I transitioned into corporate America, got into the tech industry shortly thereafter. And at the same time my wife and I were trying to raise a family. We had an 18 month old running around. We had no playbook for that Trying to figure it out. And then on October 24, 2000, my wife and I had triplets and literally quadrupled the size of our family.

There's definitely no playbook for that.

Right, Exactly, Joe. I mean, we went, you know, completely to zone defense right there. But the first thing I did was I went to see my financial planner, right? Because they say the average cost of raising kid is a million dollars per kid. So, you know, and I'm in my mid-20s, just trying to figure out my career here. And I didn't like his response, which was, max out your 401k. You've got kids. Put them in 529 plans, and you've got some state, you know, tax deductions. They talked about things like deferring your taxes, you know, putting as much as you can into IRA vehicles. And I started to ask questions, and I started to say, you know What? The top 1% are not building their wealth this way. So this put me on this obsessive mission to really unpack the blueprint of the ultra wealthy. So I started investing in private assets, everything from oil and gas to retail to raw land to single family rentals, multifamily rentals, self storage, you name it. And across the next 20 years, had a lot of success investing. And then fast forward to today, and I created Pantheon to really help other people figure out the. This blueprint of the ultra wealthy. How can we pay less in taxes? How can we invest in things that are not just stocks, bonds, and mutual funds, Right. And have all of our eggs in one basket there Right. So that we can truly live, you know, those four freedoms and live that life we've always dreamed of.

How do you know to ask these questions like, did you know about the top 1%, how they invested? Was there something that kind of triggered that in you at that time?

Well, remember back, right, in 2000? I mean, I don't even know if podcasts were out by then, right?

I don't think so.

Okay, so it was really hard to get information. But, you know, this goes back to the intellectual capital. What did I do? I read every possible book I could get my hands on. I took the Purple pill and read Kiyosaki Cash Flow Quadrant. Right. Was really insightful in terms of becoming a business owner and an investor and is really the way to play the game. So I was doing a lot of reading. I was creating a lot of relationships and trying to meet people in the private equity type world and just getting, you know, different views and then also taking Action. Right. I started investing in some of these deals, and while I didn't have as much capital at the time, I was able to take action, you know, learn from doing these deals, and then keep revising my investment thesis over time.

Got it. That's. I mean, it's great. It's tougher then it's easier. Now for information, of course. And of course, shameless plug. You have an awesome book that I read before. Really understanding your strategy because we're working together, just context on some software for your clientele. Just kind of map things out and really understanding the way your approach with holistic wealth is. It's different. And, you know, I. I would lend it to believe. And I want to dig into the whole top 1% thing. And, and what is the shift? You know, like, how do they think? You already mentioned some taxes and, you know, not being in the stocks, bonds, mutual. So I want to at least shout out, you know, if you want to grab the book, it's free, like the digital copy you can get for free@holisticwealthstrategy.com just a little plug for you. Because as a starting point, you know, we're mentioning this. It's easier now, so jump in. I know you have a podcast as well that's. That's really nice on these topics.

Yeah, yeah, sure, Joe. And. And I think, you know, part of that journey, not only was it figuring out what are the top 1% doing so well in terms of how they're allocating capital, but it's also what's wrong with the current system. Right.

Yeah.

And so what's wrong with it is that the more and more you learn about the stock market and Wall street and how people are investing, you realize very quickly that it's a rigged game. Right. And their agenda is not necessarily your agenda. So the majority of these big, you know, investment firms, the way they make money is assets under management. So whatever your net worth is, if you've got all your 401ks, you have all of these things tied up in these vehicles or with your broker, they're collecting fees. And by the way, even when the market doesn't perform, they still collect their fee. Of course, you know, and as entrepreneurs, we know that we should be rewarded if we create value, not if we're not creating value. Right. So there's things like that. And then also, I mean, this is a great one, Joe. Right. They push you to say, you know, put things into IRAs so you can defer your taxes. Right. And you're going to do better now. Well, all that is is actually really kicking the can down the road because wouldn't you rather pay taxes on the seed rather than the harvest?

Of course.

Right. So, you know, I look to actually pay my taxes now or ideally offset your taxes with things like we have an oil and gas fund, you know, where you can offset up to 1% of your investment by investing in oil and gas. Right. And have an investment as well.

There's a lot there. Because that, the way that understanding how it works and the fact that you just said, of course, it's, it's. The system's built on agendas and they're going to get paid, you know, and, and they're going to also recommend you to go down these investment vehicles. And you mentioned deferring taxes. Yeah. People want the money now. Right. Like they, they want to kind of defer pain, I guess, you know, with taxes. But what's happening there is the person who's managing whatever that investment is, is getting paid right now as well, getting you in the door and for the long term. So there's, there's that. So I think. Is there any other understanding? Because I want to get into the taxes portion because I know you stress on that a lot, and it's something not a lot of people understand, but is there in terms of how things work in the financial space, you know, 401ks IRAs, and speaking of entrepreneurs, specifically, who are listening.

Yeah. Well, I think the other, you know, biggest mistake that entrepreneurs make is that, you know, they're keeping all of their eggs in one basket. So it's either in prior 401ks or things they had before they became an entrepreneur, or they're putting everything in their business and funding everything in the business because that's what they believe in. And look, they're trying to build wealth. And I get it, we're trying to do the same thing as well. But you have to really figure out that you have to take out some proportion of the earnings that you are making and start building up your personal balance sheet. Right. And as you build that up, you can start to drive passive income. So your asset base is growing, your income is growing, and you're reducing your taxes all at the same time. Right. And when you can get this really, this trifecta in motion, this is what the wealthy do very, very well. It's a rinse and repeat. But not many people have the stamina to really follow that process through the life cycle.

I got you. And I, I mean, I've been guilty for this for a lot of years, not so much anymore, but thinking, okay, well, I trust myself and my abilities and in my business.

I'm going to beat whatever investment I can put my money into. And I know it's a pretty common thinking with entrepreneurs and business owners. So that shift, I want to talk about that a little bit more because I feel like that prevents people from taking action. Maybe they're learning, maybe they're listening and watching right now, hearing you say these things. But they're like, okay, but what do I do to break out of that? And how do I trust that, you know, this is smart for me to do rather than put all the eggs in my business?

Yeah. Well, I'll give you two really good examples, Joe. So one is, and again, you know, this is what the ultra wealthy do really well. It's like, can I take $1 and can I turn it into a multiplier? So one of the solutions we offer is cash value whole life insurance. And I think you've probably had some guests talking about infinite banking strategy. But as an entrepreneur, I cannot tell you this is a great solution. And reason being so very simply put, it's a cash value whole life insurance policy where you can put cash into the policy. You're working with a mutual insurance company that's been around for 150 years. Okay, even back to the civil war. So it's safer than banks right now. The money compounds tax free and you can create a reverse income stream, tax free in your later years if you want. You've now created a death benefit protection for your family in case something happens to you. Right. But the really cool part is that you can actually borrow against the policy. So let's say you want to build that next service offering or do an acquisition. I don't want to deal with a bank. You know, dealing with banks is such a pain right now. I'm my own bank. I can go in and reach and access that capital and fund my business. I can fund an investment, I can pay taxes, plus it's my sleep at night money in case things shift as they will. So that is a huge multiplier of how you can really take $1, have it do multiple things for you in terms of reducing your risk.

Increasing your liquidity and all of these kind of things. That's one example. Another example, Jo, is, you know, we're pushing really hard as entrepreneurs all year. You know, just grow that top line. Grow that top line, right. And we're hoping we get there. And you know, of course we want to increase our margins as well. And then you finally get to the end of the year and you're like, oh, shit, I got a tax problem. You know, what am I going to, you know, what am I going to do with this? And most people, most entrepreneurs I know, they pay it because that's all they have to do. Or you work with your CPA firm. Well, I have a lot of battle wounds. I fired five CPA firms over the course of 20 years. I finally found the right firm and I learned a lot about taxes. And taxes are actually a series of incentives for business owners and investors who know how to use the tax code, right? So for instance, if you invest in energy you can use, since it's a depleting resource, you can use what's called intangible drilling cost to actually offset your investment. Right? So in, you know, we have an oil and gas fund where, you know, this year it's up to 92% of your investment will come through as a paper loss. So would you either like to write a check to Uncle Sam or put it into an investment? So, you know, that's probably 40 or 50% of your income, especially if you're like you living in California and paying a lot in taxes. Right. So there's some really good strategies, right, where we can, you know, create this capital that we didn't even know we had. Right. Because we thought we had to pay it to the irs, but now we can actually make an investment with us that was free capital. Then we drive passive income. And again, you just keep repeating the cycle until your passive income exceeds your expenses. Then you don't even need to be taking out active income from your business. You, you can, you're only being taxed on passive income, which brings you down to a lower tax rate.

Got it? Yeah. Okay, so I'm putting this together as a. So you mentioned the cash whole life insurance policy. And you know, let's say, I'm just thinking of like, so someone's listening right now and they're thinking, what's the, what's the course of action? And, and I want to dive into after this in IRAs and 401ks and like, how to kind of deal with that. But let's say business, we want to apply that money somewhere. Would you recommend, you know, right from the business, is it a personal or business? Like, could a business actually fund one of these policies and then that.

Yeah, I mean, there's certain insurance policies, like keyman insurance, right. That you could get for your business. There, There are some strategies there. But in this case what you're doing is you're insuring your own life and or let's say your spouse. Right. So my wife and I have different policies on us. And you know, you would be able to then in your personal name, you know, fund that policy with after tax cash and you put it into the policy and then you can borrow a percentage of what that is. Right. So you, and when you borrow that out, it's not taxed because it's considered a loan. And then you use that capital for whatever you want to do. And if you're sophisticated, you can actually use it and make a little bit of an arbitrage. Right. So it starts to get a little more complex here. But if you're making 6% on the money, let's say your loan is at 5%, you know, you're now making a 1% arbitrage. But you could take that capital and then let's say you put it into your business and grow your business by 10 to 20% or put it into an alternative investment that's making you 20%. You've now added more velocity to your overall portfolio.

Makes sense. Okay, I gotcha. And going to the energy. So the fund that you have, because I think that's very, it's interesting to think about it and it makes perfect sense why the government would offer these types of tax incentives. So that would go, I'm just wondering where that goes in the whole series of things. Would that be almost immediate like before the, the cash policy?

You know, I think it's all, you know, unique to everyone and we like to really talk about asset allocation. I've had many, many centimillionaires on our show. We study asset allocation models. Everyone from Tiger 21, Michael Sonnenfeld has been on our show. Charlie Garcia, who runs R360 centimillionaire communities. So we're constantly dissecting, you know, how the big boys are really allocating capital. Right. And some of these things depend on where you are in your own journey and your own life cycle. Right. I think everyone should have, you know, that type of life insurance strategy. And in fact you'll see that most family offices and high net worth individuals, it's basically foundational to their strategy. Right. Which is, which is why we, we think of it as part of your asset allocation. Now if you have a big, we have many investors are having liquidity events this year, selling their businesses and they've got, you know, substantial, you know, capital gains that they're looking to Offset. So in that case, you know, investing in something like oil and gas is really key to the strategy. That's, you know, one of the moves that you can make. But we, we have, you know, basically playbooks where there's, you know, there's 40, 50 different types of moves that you can make on the tax strategy side that most tax plan will not talk to you about because they're really tax preparers and not tax planners. They look at everything in the rearview mirror and they just tell me what are all your statements? And they tell you this is what you owe.

So that would be your standard cpa, I'm assuming, Right?

That's the standard cpa. And most people see they don't know what they don't know. And again, that's why I had to go through firing five different firms all the years and I kept paying more and more, working with very prestigious, you know, firms. But when you're paying big six figure checks year after year and keep getting surprised, right, that you have this, you know, tax liability due, you know, I just knew that there was another way, right. And I had to figure it out. So, you know, a great place for people to start is Tom Wheelwright's book. He's a Rich dad advisor. Tax Free Wealth. Shout out to Tom. He was just on our show actually talking about the election and the impact to investors on that as well. But once you start to realize what you can do, especially if you are an entrepreneur and business owner, I mean you have the biggest amount of potential but you have to be an active partner in this as well and really understand what you can do with taxes.

That makes a lot of sense. And pausing this episode really fast, I should shout out another show you should follow. It's called this Old Marketing. It's hosted by Joe Pulizzi and Robert Rose. These guys are expert content marketers. This shows also on the HubSpot Podcast network, the audio destination for business professionals Now. Joe and Robert. On this show they break down all of the latest content marketing trends and things you got to know as a business owner. To attract and retain customers, they break down old marketing strategies called this old marketing examples from the past and apply it to the now. So super useful. It is entertaining. They love to rant. Joe and Robert do. So I always love a good rant and just go check it out yourself. Go check out their latest episode. Listen to this old marketing wherever you get your podcast. Are you tired of the hassle of building sales funnels? I totally get it. I've been there. You Started your business not to be chained your laptop all day. You build it for freedom and thankfully there is an all in one platform that makes it easier for you so you can focus on attracting customers online. The platform is called Kartra and it gives you all the tools you need to grow your business. The best part is Kartra comes stocked with all the done for you campaigns so you don't have to worry about thinking about building from scratch. Everything is designed, connected and written for you already. It also leverages AI to help you with some of this writing. All you got to do is just customize this to your liking and then boom, you got a fully built sales funnel for you. This is marketing made easy. So go try it out for free. 30 day free trial over at hustleandflowchart.com Kartra will get you there. So again, that's hustleandflowchart.com K A R T. I was gonna ask like, so where does one start to find a CPA that's actually, you know, is thinking on this wavelength because like they're completely different ends of the spectrum, you know.

Well, this is why, and Joe, this is frankly, this is why we created a virtual family office where we can provide these solutions to people. Because it's taken me, you know, kid you not 20 years to curate, you know, best in breed people that think this way when it comes to all of these different domains such as asset protection, estate planning, tax strategy. Right. Life advanced life insurance. Right. It's a completely different set of advisors than if you talk to your financial planner or you call your local financial institution. They're going to just give you the average person. But look, if you want to be in the top 1%, you need the top 1% of advisors. Right. Who, who really understand this.

Yeah. And that's where I don't think I've had anyone on the show for the almost eight years talk about family offices and what that is. So if you can for one define what it is and you kind of were already doing that with that whole, you know, spectrum of advisors. But then also like I think a hesitancy that some people have are like, who do I trust? You know, which advice do I trust and where do I go? And of course you have a virtual family office. So can you kind of define it and maybe tell us how it works a little bit?

Yeah, sure. There's so many different structures out there and they're all very different. But essentially what you have with a, with a family office is, you know, typically it's a family with 100 million, let's say, and net worth that has a team on staff, on payroll of tax specialists, tax planners, attorneys, estate planners. Right. Asset protection attorney, maybe a financial planner. Right. For the public equities portion and all of that. Their wealth is being managed by this team on a daily basis that consists of reporting, consists of management and everyone is speaking the same language. So they're all, all, you know, working on the wealth while the entrepreneur is, you know, focusing on their business. Right. That's essentially what that is. Well, my belief is that, you know, you don't need to have 100 million to, to think this way and to get access to these types of resources, but we should be. So what we've done is created a model where it's a virtual family office where we can actually bring together all the resources we've curated. You know, like our favorite tax planner who does my tax taxes, you know, can actually, you can get access to them. And then we do that on a very, just a month to month retainer. That's very low risk. Right. So you get a really cost effective access to top notch resources. And really our goal is to, you know, significantly reduce your taxes, increase your wealth. Right. As well as provide other things. Right. It's not only about growth with your wealth, but it's preservation, it's risk management, you know, so you can be out there doing, you know, your unique ability.

So is there, you mentioned a standard and that's awesome that you did that by the way, because I think that's like, I don't know if it's called a one stop shop, but it kind of feels that way at least. And it's curated from someone who's been doing it, it, you know, for yourself for 20 plus years and of course helping a bunch of people as well. I'm kind of thinking of what's the number that is like, you know, net worth. You mentioned 100 million is kind of the standard for like a standard family office. Is there a number that you think someone should be thinking of to join something like yours or someone else's as a family office?

Yeah. I mean even if you have 3 to 4 million, right. But your goal is to get to eight figures or more. You know, then you, you want, you want a shortcut, right? You want the right resources or you know, sometimes maybe, maybe your net worth is even less than that. You know, maybe you're only at a million or two, but you're early on in your career or something. But you have a nice Seven figure income, right, that you're growing and you're scaling really well, you know, and you need some, you know, you need some help because number one, you don't, you may not necessarily have the time to manage all of this. And number two, as you start to scale the complexity of this, I mean we have, and even speaking for myself, I mean the number of different entities that I have in terms of managing things, the asset protection compliance that we have with all the different assets that we have, you know, it gets a little bit hairy. So having someone that can really quarterback that for you is immensely valuable.

Cool. That makes sense. And that's a good metric for. Just wanted to put a number out there for folks listening, watching and of course, reach out to Dave for further info on that. I want to go back to IRAs, IRAs, 401ks and there's a whole bunch of different IRA types.

It seems like that's a place where it's not. So it's not perfect to put your money there, but it's commonly touted as a place that's, you know, like the standard thinking put it there. You know, you see it in corporate world, of course, but even entrepreneurs with, you know, things like Wealthfront and you know, all these other things that, you know, maybe they come in different flavors, varieties. Can you speak to that topic like someone who has money in there, currently contributing or maybe hasn't even taken that leap yet. And then like what can you do with, with that way of thinking and shift it to what you're, what you're doing here?

Sure. So in phase four of the book, right. There's five phases of our book in the holistic wealth strategy to try to give people a framework to make things really actionable for them. And in phase four, we talk about asset repositioning. Right. And 90% of Americans have their capital tied up in two places. It's either entrapped equity in their primary residence and the rate of return on equity in your home is zero. Okay. Second place is in government sponsored qualified plans, all the 401ks IRAs you mentioned, whatever flavor of it that might be. And I don't know about you, but having the government tell me when I can access my money, what the tax rate is going to be, how much I can take out. I don't want to give the government that much control, right? So I want control of my capital. And also, you know, even if you look at, I'm going to give you, I'm going to give the listeners a really great example and in fact, if anyone wants this for your audience, Joe, I'd love to be able to share this because I went through this process and it was extremely illuminating. So I actually sold my 401k, contrary to what everyone would possibly think in saying how taboo that was. But about 10 years ago I went through the math and so I. We actually have created a 401k exit calculator. And let's run through this little scenario. So let's say you have 100k and your 401k, you paid the 10% penalty and you paid a 35% in taxes. So now it's total of 45% minus your. Your hundred k. So now you're at 55k net investable. Now I take that 55k and I start investing in some alternative assets like real estate, energy, and they're compounding at 20% a year and you're offsetting all of the taxes with that.

And then if I compare that versus just having left the 401k in there, my scenario was that, hey, I would break even in probably like four to five years and you know, I would be fine even paying that taxes. Well, it turns out I broke even and like two years I offset the taxes by investing in energy and other things. And running in this scenario out on the calculator, the 55K comes out to over 2 million, Joe, in 20 years. And if you leave it in the, in the 401k, it's 286k after taxes.

After taxes, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And we didn't even factor in fees and inflation on that either. So it's probably even less. So even if you think, you know, my assumptions are high and you want to go for a different assumption, model it out how you want. But that's how I looked at it objectively, saying, hey, if I could outperform this way and have my money back in control. So I exited it and you know, I never look back.

Yeah, I've never heard that term like exit my 401k or sell that off. But it makes, it's with all these things, you know, these instruments, financial instruments. I was chatting, I chat with my wife a lot because of things that I've gathered from you reading the book, our conversations is it's just a reframe, you know, from the fees and the structure and things that you were given. You know, when you invest in a 401k or IRA, you know, there's a fee to take it out. Like you mentioned, most people, including myself, haven't always thought of, what are the tax implications of taking out my own money? You know, there's a fee, there's taxes, probably other. There's other scenarios in fine print. But then you start running the calculations and just running some math, kind of like what you did, and think of alternative investments. Well, I want it. I want to pivot to that after this, to just kind of show what's possible, what's out there and available to folks. I feel like that's where your brain starts to. At least mine does and my wife's as well. It's like, whoa, there's a whole different reality and way of thinking of using my own money. It's just, what are you doing with it? Where is it housed? And is it working for you or is it for someone else?

Yeah, Joe. And I mean, this is what really makes me passionate because I think, you know, we were all taught this by our peers, by our companies. I've got a 401k program, and it's matching. Isn't that free money? Well, no, it's not free money. Right. And when you look at who's created all of these things, it's the government and Wall Street. Right. They're the ones making a ton of money off of you. And what I find further fascinating is that half of these financial planners, I mean, they're not even accredited investors. That mean you probably have a higher net worth than them. So you're taking advice from them. And we have a lot of them actually invest in our opportunities once they kind of learn about it, because they're not taught this. Right. They're only able to typically sell the products that they. They have. Right. They're not going to talk to you about real estate because they can't sell it to you. Right. So they don't. They don't really understand it. So, you know, I think we all learned this because that's what was available. But if you don't take control of your own wealth today, you know, no one's going to do it for you.

No. And that's. Yeah. It becomes very clear when you start looking at this and in the instruments. It's, you know, we're kind of just. We're hoping for the best. And you mentioned, you know, even the sleep. Sleep well at Night fund, you know, inside that whole life insurance policy. The infinite banking is you literally become your own bank. Like, you now have predictability with things, and it's an instrument to earn and leverage, and it's on your own terms. It's not someone Else, you know, hold. Holding the rules, holding the bag for you. Holding your bag.

Yeah. And think about this, Joe. I mean, it's, it's interesting, right? I mean, everyone is so caught up right now in the upcoming election. You know, it's, it's very polarizing, right? Whatever, you know, your views might be, and people are just kind of like deer in the headlights with all this uncertainty. Well, how can you just remove uncertainty for your life? Well, what if you just said, I've got 12 months of cash flow in my bank, right? That whether, you know, whether I get that next client, whether I lose the next five clients, whether my wife stops working or whatever.

We have capital. We can get through this. So I've just bought myself some certainty. And that's going to change your mindset, right? Because half of this game is all about mindset, so. Right. So what's challenging you? Right? Because a lot of us grew up in a scarcity type mindset world. I know I did. Right. Where our parents generation, I mean, we were vegetarians, not by choice, right. Because we were trying to save money. So at every different corner. Right. But when you can shift to having an abundance type mindset because you get some of these things in place and you've really thought out, you know, what's holding you back, you've removed some of those limiting beliefs, you know, your trajectory is going to be exponential.

You, you set it up perfectly. And I wanted to note, I don't think I've ever told you, I'm like, you just always come across as that super calm guy. Very. And I don't know if that was always the case for you, Dave, you know, back in the military or even before. And the fact that you have, what, four kids, right? Four children. They've grown at this, at this time. But do you think it's pinned on a lot of this? I mean, you already said you came from a scarcity mindset. You had a whole different upbringing than the way you're thinking now.

Well, probably. I mean, you know, being a marine captain and going through combat, I mean, if you're, you know, taking fire, you need to be absolutely as calm, cool and collected as possible to call in an airstrike or whatever, to actually save lives. Right. So managing your emotions is a hundred percent, you know, key. Right. And you know, I spent a lot of time developing myself, you know, meditation. I exercise like crazy, but I do a lot of techniques to really, you know, develop my mind and kind of move closer to consciousness. So I think it's really important so that you can really live an intentional life, you know, and make, you know, make strategic decisions right the right way. And really, you know, I love how Nick Peterson talks about this, right? About, you know, you're playing your own game. You're never going to win if you're playing on someone else's game, right? So set up your own chessboard to win and just shut out the noise of the others.

It's absolutely. Nick is brilliant. Saw him recently for the first time in person. Had him on the podcast a couple times. And yeah, the way that guy thinks, I feel like he's like a 90 year old brain, but like sharp but wise. You know, he's been through a lot previous lifetimes or something.

I like what you said there because I'm putting together the conscious side of what you just said. And again, it's holistic. You're thinking of everything, mindset, physical and all the above, health. But then knowledge, the knowledge of what you're providing us right now. For anyone who might feel like they're currently or have this upbringing of scarcity, you know, because of family, peers, whatever scenario, knowledge is power, but obviously you got to act on it. It's up to us to actually do something with knowledge. I feel like what you're giving us now hopefully is turning on some light bulbs of a different way of doing things. I mean, money, money's not going anywhere. It's, you know, it's like we need it, love it or hate it, you know, you don't need to stress over it. But I feel like, like the knowledge of what we can do with, with money, it is energy, you know, it's, it's a form of energy and it's. Are we gonna have it work for us and for our own lives and well being, or are we gonna ignore it and maybe keep that scarcity mindset, that feeling perpetuating, that's scares the hell out of me to just ignore it and like hope for the best.

I don't feel like that's.

Yeah. And I think, you know, a lot of your audience are, are very entrepreneurial, right? That's what they're you. So, you know, if you're in control of your own thinking, right, I mean, this is the place to do some deep thinking, right? On what is your personal vision? Right, because we spend a lot of time with our companies, you know, defining your vision statement and your mission statement. What are your core values? Well, have you done the same thing for your business? Because this is what family offices do. Or the same thing for Your, you know, yourself, right. Your family. Right. Where do you want your family to be? Where do you want to be in 25 years with your family? Do you have a personal vision statement that's crystal clear, like Cameron Herald's vivid vision. Right. I mean, super detailed. Right. And understanding, you know, all of those values and those core things, because the more that you can be aligned to that and align your unique ability in that, you know, life is just to be so much better. Right. It's so, so great when you don't have to make decisions because, you know, hey, we just don't have enough capital to do this or, you know, this thing didn't pan out. So now we have to retrench. Right. And kind of go this way, you know, and then you have that scarcity of, oh, if I lose something. Right. But when you get to that point of your passive income exceeding your expenses, that's like a whole new level, right. Where you can just. You make decisions differently.

Yeah, it's different. Different decisions. What's a.

What are.

Like you said you exercise like crazy. You mentioned you cycle. You know, you're in Italy doing that. What. What consistent habits do you take into every day and, you know, to keep yourself in the game, focused, calm, collected, with so much going on?

Yeah, I think the morning routine is really huge, Joe. And, you know, coming out of the Marines, it was like, you know, working out is like brushing my teeth. So I've done four marathons, I've done Ironman. You know, now I do kind of some bike racing and, you know, cycling. Cycling, yoga, and a little bit of swimming are kind of my core workouts with some. With some strength training. But I. I've learned. It's so fascinating. Right. I. I didn't really realize for quite a while that health and fitness are really two different things. So now at 54, I'm focusing a lot on my health. So even when I used to be an amazing fitness, I think my health is at its highest level it's ever been because I'm focusing on it. And in fact, as part of our family office, we work with a precision medicine team.

That. That actually kind of connects us. And there's a whole concierge team. And so I'm constantly learning about things like how can I optimize my sleep. Doing a ton of stuff with biohacking. So we've had a bunch of folks like Reagan on our show. Yep, exactly. So, you know, I practice a lot of those, red light therapy, pemf, a lot of those different things. But I would say, you know, the core for people is just get your morning routine, you know, really buttoned up so you don't even think about it. It's automatic pilot. And, you know, getting the exercise in meditation is key. Journaling is key. And then also, don't forget about your evening routine. Like now I've really been working on dialing in my evening routine, where it's doing some things like foam rolling and stretching to change your parasympathetic nervous system. So now I'm able to actually get, you know, more qualitative sleep and just getting out of bed, you know, even more energy than I had before and constantly looking for those. Those gains.

That's cool. I. I love all that. I. I do some of those and. But the foam rolling, that's actually a good point. Used to do that a lot right before starting. And there's a massive difference when you start getting the blood flow and just mobility in general before your body hits something for, you know, kind of a stagnant place for a long time. Yeah, and. Yeah, absolutely. Right. And then sleep, you know, in general is a game changer for everyone. And I know for a lot of busy entrepreneurs, it's hard for us to turn it off, you know, and separate our minds, let alone everything else from the work that we're doing or the thing that's coming up tomorrow, whatever it is. So creating that space, I'm always thinking of, what are the bumpers? Like, how can. How can those be engineered within our days? And that's basically what you just described there, being very deliberate.

Yep.

So that's awesome, Dave. Well, you know, I think on this note, there's. We covered a ton, and I want to make sure folks take action. So I want to maybe leave us with what you would recommend. What's the first place to go to? Because we did talk about a lot, and everyone's different, of course, but, you know, if you were to recommend, okay, start here and then continue on, how would that look?

Yeah, the biggest piece of advice I would give is to really invest in yourself and think of yourself as your greatest asset. So that could mean investing in your health, your mindset. Right. Your iq, your financial iq. Right. All of these different things. And that's where I've always seen a 10x100x type return. Right. And if you go through the book, you'll see these five different phases, where phase number one is actually mindset. It's all about yourself. Because I guarantee you, if you take some of these topics, you're going to talk to people at the Thanksgiving, you know, dinner table, coming up at the family. And you, if you want to talk about exiting your 401k right, or investing in oil and gas, the first thing they're going to say is that's risky. Oh, I've had a friend of mine, something totally blew up or why would you do that? Right? It's all because of, you know, mindset and limiting beliefs. Right? But why don't you be the judge of that? You know, learn, make an educated decision, you know, just like you would anything else in your business and start to take back control. Right. And as you start making those shifts, it's, it's really interesting because your net worth is directly proportional to your financial iq.

I couldn't agree more. And so I'm going to shout out your book one more time. Holisticwealthstrategy.com Go grab it. It's free. Sign up and you'll get that digital copy. And your emails are great too. So to continue on the financial IQ and just in general, all the different IQs, I know you ping, you have kind of a nice little drip that's very. They're actually emails I like to open and explore further because again.

Giving you praise but I think it's very rightly deserved because you're bringing a different narrative. And then when you start, knowledge is power again. And if you're at all interested in any of this, you start going down the rabbit hole and then putting things together. It's changed a lot of how I interact with my business, with my, my spouse, even a couple of my friends, other partners where it's engineering all with this as the foundation, your, your book in the way of thinking. So I appreciate you. Dave, thank you very much for this.

Thanks, Joe. Appreciate that. Appreciate the opportunity to be here.

Sam.