Invest In Your Most Valuable Asset | Wealth Without Bay Street

So the Holistic wealth strategy is really a step by step approach. That's a flexible framework to help people wherever they are on their journey, you know, achieve really massive legacy wealth. Right. So the entire thing is embodied first by a vision statement and creating that vision statement for yourself and your family. And that really underpins everything because if you don't have a target, you're going to miss every time.

Foreign. What exactly is the Holistic Wealth Strategy? A framework for building real wealth and living an extraordinary life. Well, it's a best selling book and we're joined by the author today, Dave Walcott. Now, he started his career, believe this, as a captain in the Marine Corps. And in 2000, he and his wife basically won the Babylon. They found out they were having triplets. That led him to having a meeting with his financial advisor that didn't go so well. And going down an entirely new track to discover what exactly he could do to take control of his financial life. He spent the next 20 years building several businesses, investing in alternative assets. We're going to talk about that today. And creating the Pantheon Holistic Wealth Strategy. It's a playbook to becoming ultra wealthy and having not only the freedom of money, but freedom of purpose, time and relationship. Today, Dave is the founder and CEO of Pantheon Investments and is more passionate than ever about helping entrepreneurs build wealth by passively investing in superior quality real estate and alternative assets that provide predictable cash flow. Now, as the author of the Holistic Wealth Strategy, it's a framework again for building real wealth and living extraordinary life. He's also the host of the Wealth Strategy Secrets for the Ultra Wealthy podcast. Now, I've had the pleasure of being a guest on his show. It's an incredible show. He has a ton of value to his listeners. We're so grateful to have him here with us. And of course, he's also a member of the incredible Strategic Corps coach organization. So we got tons to talk about. Dave, we're so glad to have you here on our program and I just want to jump right into it. Talk to us about getting that, that call from your wife about having triplets and then where do we go from there?

Yeah, you bet, Richard. Grateful to be here and connect. Always such a pleasure to be with such, you know, like minded go getters. Quite an amazing life. And I do have some little ones. And I mean, you know, you get your first kid and there's no instruction manual, right? You're just trying to figure it out. And we were having a challenging time with just that. The toddler at the time. And then we thought we were going to have a second and we went in for that ultrasound and we're completely surprised that we were actually having triplets. You know, the, the ultrasound just like kept going. It was, it was really crazy. And, you know, after drinking a bit that night, through, getting through the shock of that and realizing that we were actually quadrupling the size of our family, like overnight, frankly, the first thing that really came to my mind, Richard, was, you know, how am I going to be able to provide for my family? Right? Because, you know, I had a really big vision, you know, a lot of goals of what I wanted to accomplish in life. And, you know, obviously raising children was there, but now you've just quadrupled that, which I wasn't, was not planning for. So I went to see my financial advisor and, you know, he, he just told me the same thing that they all do, right? Which was, you know, look, you basically can put money in your 401k, max that out. Oh, you have kids. So you can just put money in 529 plans and you get a little tax savings. You know, that'll be great, right? And just keep, know, dollar cost averaging and kind of, you know, doing what you're doing. So I became just so frustrated with that response, Richard. And maybe that was also the entrepreneur in me that really wanted to figure out, look, how are the top 1% building their wealth? Because I knew it wasn't as a retail investor in the stock market. Right. There's gotta be other strategies that we can get into. So this kind of launched me on this obsessive journey to really figure out how the top 1%, you know, are truly building their we.

That's amazing. And it's so interesting to hear how you got that same conventional planning story, the same responses that most people, even to this day, and, you know, we're talking 20 years ago that you had that conversation, doesn't seem like that conversation has changed a lot in the conventional planning model. And so, you know, going down the path of asking that important question, what are the top 1% doing? I mean, that is a critical question. And if you're asking questions like that, your natural curiosity is going to take you to answers and down the path to seek that out. So talk to us a little bit about the journey of asking that question and then figuring out how would you go about finding those answers.

Yeah, it's really a great point you make, Richard. Right. Because you know, what I've seen with successful investors, successful entrepreneurs, it's all about the questions you ask. So not only of other people, but of yourself, right? What questions are you asking for yourself? And like I said, I had a really big vision, and I started to ask some of these questions to my financial planner. You know, things like deferring taxes. Is that a really good idea? Right. They all say, oh, you can reduce your taxes this year. And everyone just says, that's great. My financial planner says, you know, go ahead and do that. But, you know, if you actually look at that with a little more data behind it and you realize that you're actually going to be paying taxes at the end of this accumulation phase, probably have less deductions, taxes are likely going up in Canada and the U.S. right? So why would I want to pay more taxes? Right. You know, I'd rather pay taxes on the seed instead of the harvest, right? So I was asking questions like that. I was also asking questions around this, you know, accumulation theory that they talk about, right? Which is, you know, working for 35 years, you know, your entire life in some career, kind of, you know, shackled to some job maybe you don't love, and then you stave up this nest egg, and then at 65, life is supposed to, you know, open up for you, and then you get to go travel and do the things with your spouse that, you know, you couldn't do earlier. And I didn't want to do that. I want to live for today. I want to embrace today and live the best life that I can every day of my life, because I know it's a g. But that accumulation theory puts you into a scarcity mindset, right? So I. I really didn't like that. And I also wanted to feel that, you know, again with the abundance mindset, you know, your income should not be capped, right? Income should be basically whatever you can make it, right? So, you know, having the right mindset to be able to get there, you know, versus that approach. And then the other thing, you know, big question here, Richard, that I think, you know, is really false, that traditional financial planning talks about is this Monte Carlo simulation as well. So you will build up and you get to this nest egg at age 65, and then they simulate that, okay, you're a male. You're likely going to die at age 89, 91. So therefore, you can spend 4% of your wealth every year. And that's even conservative. I think now it's more like 2% every year until you're 91 and you pass away. So you're basically killing your golden goose every year. You wait till you're 65 to build up this amount, and then you keep dwelling, dwindling that down. And that did not align for me because I want to create legacy wealth for my family. I don't want to kill my golden goose. I want to feed my golden goose.

I think it's interesting you mentioned kill the golden goose because it's not like you're using a shotgun. It's like, it's more like a, like you're slow choking the goose or you're, you're slowly poisoning the goose so it dies over a 21 year period of time until you reach that, you know, age, you know, age 90 or whatever. So now, Vern, I know legacy is a big word for him, and I saw you jump in right there. So when, when, you know, Dave talks about that idea of legacy for his own family, what comes up for you? Vern?

Well, first off, I have to say, Dave, I really appreciate a lot of things that you said. The reason why I was looking over here, because I was actually feverishly taking notes as I was listening to what you're saying, because, you know, a lot of the things that you're talking about are very similar to the types of things that we talk to our clients about in trying to find the right fit for the process that we coach clients to implement. And the key thing that I'm picking up from what you're laying down here is it's all about everything begins with the way that you think. You mentioned mindset a couple of times, and that's what it's all about is like you were driven to ask some questions because your family expanded and you had the desire to make a difference for your family, and that caused you to ask questions and seek, you know, the guidance and the results that you've now produced today. So, and then you actually, you know, were you had the courage to, for lack of better terms, kind of stand up for your family and say, hey, I appreciate the advice, but gosh, that doesn't really sound like the type of outcome that I want to create. And then you went even further. So I, I just really appreciate a lot of the things that you said and I wrote down a couple of other things, but I'll address what Richard said just about legacy. You know, one of the things that I bring to the table talking to my family clients is some of the go again, I'll reference Nelson. Some of the things that he coached us on is just thinking long range. And I find it extremely fascinating that my behavior, the actions that I take today, the decisions that I make, where I put my money, what I do with that money, can have a dramatic impact, not on just my kids, but kids that I hope to meet someday and kids that I likely will not meet one day. Right. So I've talked to Richard about this. Like, I really just believe, like, my purpose here is to transform the trajectory of my family name. And that sounds like pretty exciting, but a big responsibility. And we're blessed with the ability and the capabilities to help other families find out how they can transform the trajectory of their family. Right. And legacy to me is. And you may have heard this, people think legacy. Oh, well, my kids, you know, they.

Have to work hard.

They have to build up their own wealth. Well, my kids have to work hard and build up their own wealth, too. They're just. I'm not just going to leave them a big pile of cash. That's not the legacy. To me, the legacy is the coaching and the guidance and the lessons that we teach them. The values that we leave behind and the mindset and how to appreciate that wealth that might be left behind, how to preserve it and how to grow it and how to continue to pass it on. Not because we want to be super wealthy and, you know, driving private jets and all that kind of stuff. That stuff's all just fun. But what really matters to me is, to your point, freedom of time, freedom of money, freedom of relationship is to choose how I spend my time today. And money is just a tool to help us have more control over our time. And that, to me, was what legacy is all about. I. I get. I get frustrated when I think about all of the wasted potential, not just in my family, but all the people out there in the North America and in the world who are working super hard ultimately, just to keep the lights on and figure out how they're going to eat tomorrow. Like, I don't care what your higher purpose is or the. The higher power of your choice. Let's call it God, the universe, whatever you want to call it. I'm pretty sure whoever put us here wasn't the purpose, wasn't to worry about the Visa bill. There's some higher potential. There's some higher impact that we're meant to have here. And I just feel like if we solve the money problem, that's really going to help us live to our highest potential. And so that's.

That's.

That's why I'm here.

Yeah, no, 100%. And if you think back actually to the. To the days, remember, in School with Maslow's hierarchy, right. The hierarchy of needs in the base level. You know, you've got, you know, food, shelter, water. Right. And financial security is really just above that. And I, and sadly, you know, most, you know, people are struggling with just having enough financial security to really get by. But a lot of that can be changed by, as you pointed out, mindset education. Right. So many things can happen. And then when you move past this, you know, financial security level, it's amazing what can really happen in your life, right. When you're not, when you're not constricted by that. And you can really, you know, dream big and think big and create that vision of, you know, what those freedoms that you're seeing, you know, seeking in your life, you know, how can I achieve those?

Well, and I think that's a perfect point to, to really start to dig in. And I want to hear more about the holistic wealth strategy. You know, you know, number one, what prompted you to write the book? But even more specifically, when you think about that strategy, how would you convey what are the core components of that strategy, the key tenets of it that you want to make sure, you know, our listeners and the people that read your book can really come away with?

Yeah, absolutely, Richard. So I, you know, I really spent 20 years developing this and, you know, as you guys are proponents of unique ability and everything, right. My highest is actually follow through the, you know, on the second one. So basically the way I think and what's instinctual to me is systematizing everything. So my brain has wanted to, as I've been learning all of these lessons over the years, I've wanted to create a system for doing this so that I could help other people, you know, kind of make sense, you know, because how many times do you, you listen to a great podcast, you read a great book, you get inspired by a certain idea, but you're not really sure what's the next step do I take. And maybe something might not necessarily apply for me. So the holistic wealth strategy is really a by step approach. That's a flexible framework to help people, wherever they are on their journey, you know, achieve really massive legacy wealth. Right? So the entire thing is embodied first by a vision statement, and creating that vision statement for yourself and your family. And that really underpins everything because if you don't have a target, you're going to miss every time, right? So we create that vision statement, you get that clarity, you get that confidence right on what you're going for, and then we move into phase one, which is really all about yourself. Right. We've kind of talked about this already, right. It's mindset. You know, what is the difference between say, Steve Jobs and Elon Musk versus some of those people you went to high school with who might be in the same town, the same job and the same circle of friends? You know, I would argue that it's mindset, right? So, so creating, you know, the, the proper mindset, understanding that you are your greatest asset and investing in yourself is going to yield the biggest roi, bar none. Whether it's, you know, your health, your education, your relationships. And then we're starting to create goals and habits, right. That are going to support that vision that we're trying to achieve. So those are really fundamental and that's, that's really step one or phase one in the wealth strategy.

I love that because it's, you're going to the core of what's going to create long term consistency. And it's not, it's not a strategy of like, oh, well, here's the next best investment product. No, here's how you work on you. And by working on you, everything else becomes clearer, more concise, more refined, and then opportunities begin to appear. I think is more the track to going down.

Yeah. And one way to kind of think about your vision as well is, you know, you know, write down a list of a hundred things that you want to be, do or have in life. Right. And so that being part like we, we all think about have, like, oh, maybe I'd like to have that, you know, nice house or that car. You know, we kind of think about money as buying things. Right. But a lot of it, you know, and to Vern's point earlier, you know, around values. Right. I would like to be a person who's trustworthy and have integrity. I'd like to be someone who's responsible. Right. So what am I doing on a daily, on a weekly basis to be able to, you know, instantiate that and live by those values myself and then also to be able to pass on to my family. So a lot of these things, again, we're coming at this from a holistic perspective. So, you know, so that be, do and have is kind of a good way to kind of frame up, you know, you know, your target, right. And what you're moving to. Not just, you know, tangible things.

Dave, this is awesome. What I'm hearing is if you know what's going on, you'll know what to do. So you're, you're doing the Tough work in the dirt to find out and figure out a who you are and who you want to be so you know how to act.

Right.

Like if you know what you're trying to create, then you'll know. Okay, if I, if I make this decision, if I eat this cupcake right now, is that going to get me further from my objective of X amount of weight or body fat or whatever that specific goal is as an example, or is it going to get me closer to it? Probably going to get me further from it. So I can now be empowered to make the decision to not act that way. Right. So if I want to increase my level of integrity, for example, it's like at the end of the day when you're tired and you're thinking, gosh, I think I'm just going to button it up for the day, rest up and get at it tomorrow. But oh, I said I would call Richard and just touch base about that meeting tomorrow for record. Yeah, I'm going to go ahead and do the thing I know to do because that's what somebody who has with integrity would do. So now I know that I need to take that action if I actually want to fulfill on that objective. I just had to say that because to your point is like sometimes people don't know where to start and sometimes where you start is just doing some examination, doing some reflection, setting some objectives, figuring out who you actually want to be so you know what to go out and do or, or the right. Who's that you need to help you with the hows and all those pieces. Everything starts to come together when you have more clarity about of your purpose and what your objectives are.

Yeah.

Now how do you find the, the next step then? Once you've, once you've laid that groundwork, where, where does the, where does it take us? Next in the path.

Yeah. So I'll help the audience out with a real simple equation that I've learned. Right. We, we, we're always thinking about yield on investments. Yield, yield, yield, you know, what's that return. But in my experience, basically your net worth is equal to your financial IQ plus your mindset IQ plus your health IQ and your relationship capital. Right. So in this phase, these are the components we want to look at again from a holistic perspective. Right. Most people, we've kind of talked about some of the problem with traditional financial planning that, that most everyone you know learns, right. Because you've got this 30 trillion dollar financial services, you know, teaching our parents this, our colle leagues, everyone this type of approach. But when you start to learn about sophisticated strategies like infinite banking, for instance, and becoming your own banker, or investing in, you know, private equity syndications, more sophisticated investments, you realize that you can actually achieve more with less risk. Right? So. But it takes education, right? And trying to figure that out. We talked about the mindset piece and how critical that is. You know, what's to say you can't achieve a hundred million and become a centimillionaire? It's all in your mind, right? Or are you just thinking that, hey, incrementally, I want to make 20 more in income this year. You know, it's all about, you know, grooming your mindset. And let's not forget about health, okay? Because you could have all the dreams in the world, right? But if you didn't have your health, you'd only have one. Okay? So health is so important. And I focus on my health absolutely every day. In fact, it's another area I'm a bit obsessive with. I've gotten into biohacking, I work with a functional medicine doctor and just continually evolving my health. And in fact, my biological age just came in 10 years younger than my chronological age. Right. Because of the things that I'm focusing on for this. So now my health IQ is taking me closer towards my goals and not detracting me from the goals. Right. And then lastly, let's talk about Relationship Capital. You know, we've talked about Strategic Coach, right? Putting yourself in the right room. We have a mastermind group and a virtual family office of, you know, putting like minded people together to solve complex financial problems, to be exposed to new ideas and strategies and things. If you're not doing that and elevating yourself to that next level, you're always going to be a product of the five people that you're spending time with.

Love it. Yeah, Relationship capital is key. And boy, you can certainly load up on relationship Capital just by being a member of Strategic Coach. At least that's been my experience, 100%. Now speaking of that, and you know, I just want to piggyback on Strategic Coach for a moment. You've obviously been a member of Coach for a number of years. What would you say, you know, caused you to take that leap to join, become a member of Coach? And, and how has that, that aspect of being involved in a group of high performing entrepreneurs like that, how has that showed up in your own business and, and then maybe, maybe even a little bit in your life?

Yeah, I really appreciate that question, Richard. I mean, it's really been a game changer for me. I mean, it's really completely changed the trajectory. The first time I got exposed to Strategic Coach was listening to Dan Sullivan on a podcast just like this, and he was talking about the R factor and the DOS question, which is, you know, identifying your top dangers in life at this current time, your top opportunities and your biggest strengths. How can you use those to achieve those opportunities? And I literally, I have my journal from, I think six years ago where I wrote down my biggest opportunity was build a business out of wealth building. Right. And my strengths are, you know, trying to, you know, communicate, solve problems for people, creating meaningful relationships and things. So how could I apply that? And I forged ahead and just created this business to do that. I don't really look at what any of the competition is doing, what any of the industry is doing. I'm just creating something that aligns to my unique ability and helps solve problems and bring value to our clients. So that's how I created this business. So I owe so much of that to Strategic Coach. That's a game changer. And then just, you know, let's talk about that. You know, four Cs, right, that they have is one of their elements, right? And, and Vernon talked about it earlier, which is you, you need to become comfortable with taking on the courage to go do something new. Right? And once you. Once you have that courage, you make a commitment and then you build up confidence and you create a new capability. And this is kind of like a virtuous cycle that you need to do in life. So, you know, Coach really helps you get the courage and it gives you clarity on so many things in life. Like, we're always trying to decide, you know, what. What path do I take here, right? What's the right one for me, right? And it's really hard, but I've been able to think about my thinking and really critically, solve problems more and have clarity on the decisions that I make.

Oh, amazing. Yeah, that's fantastic. Well, I mean, we've certainly done as much as we can, and we're always improving, of course, on weaving Strategic Coach. And it's many tools and ideas through our organization. So every person in our organization, right down to the brand new person that just got hired, has an idea what Strategic coaches, they may not know it fully, but they will over time. And so absolutely wonderful to hear how that's shown up for you in your life. And I think it's important. So we always like to pay homage to our mentors here. Dan Sullivan being one of Them, obviously. And of course for us, we can't go far without thanking the great R. Nelson Nash and what he's done for us and our organization and our clients. And so with that, I'm just kind of curious to piggyback because you talk about alternative strategies and there's an alternative marketplace that essentially is adjacent to what the conventional financial advisor, the guy that you met with 20 years ago when you got the call for the triplets to try and help you in your financial life, realizing that path wasn't the right path and you were able to discover this kind of adjacent world that was running parallel to what the conventional world was talking about. So can you speak to that a little bit for our listeners? And I know one of the things that's part and parcel with that is going to be the concept of infinite banking. So I'd love to hear how that showed up for you in your life.

Yeah, good question. So, you know, again, I was really just asking those questions of my financial advisor. Things that just didn't make sense to me and then they pushed me on this direction to, you know, keep asking questions. And also, you know, we talked about relationship capital model. So keep putting myself in the right room of like, you know, different players, right. And before you know it, you know, things that were, you know, not ordinary, become ordinary once you're in the right room. Right. Of people that are challenging, you know, conventional wisdom. And then you start to take action on some of these things and you start to see the results. I mean I, you know, some of my earlier, I invested in asset class. Everything from retail to raw land hands to oil and gas to multifamily single family, you know, all these kind of different asset classes. And again I started to see, you know, consistent double digit returns, consistent passive income, you know, my, my balance sheet was just kind of expanding, you know, and getting that snowball effect. And then, so you start to see that and then you, you know, you believe it. Right. You know, I was making much more informed decisions, right. And, and then I was, wasn't afraid to really take action. I think some people get into this, you know, paralysis by analysis, especially with something like, you know, let's talk about infinite banking. Right? It's kind of a sophisticated concept and there's a lot of confusion in the marketplace about it. Right? But once you can, you know, learn about it with, you know, some, you know, folks like yourself or something who really understand it, understand how to utilize it, can give examples and refere and all this, then you can make a more Informed decision and start somewhere. Right. You know, make, make a move on the chessboard. And if you see how it works, then, you know, go in deeper.

Yeah, I love that. I love that. And so as you, you know, go about with your, with your organization, of course you're, you're helping people map out this wealth strategy, Starting again at the fundamentals and working the way through. You know, there becomes a point where they get exposed to these different alternate strategies. So how do you find, is it, is it, is there a systematic way that you bridge that gap for them, or is it really providing the information to give your clientele and the people that you love to serve the ability to kind of choose their own path of learning as they go down that track?

Go into phase three of the, the wealth strategy. Right. Because I think that fits right here. So, you know, we talked about mindset as phase one. We talked about improving your financial iq, health iq, relationship capital is phase two. So in phase three, what we want to do is we want to create an infrastructure around our wealth. And again, most of the time, we're all conditioned to be thinking about, what's the yield on this investment? 6%, 9%, 12, whatever it is. Well, when's the last time you sat down and you did an analysis of your income statement, whether that be your business or your personal economy, and realize that, hey, for instance, taxes are your number one biggest expense. Just think if you could reduce your taxes by 10% a year perpetually. Think about what that would do to your wealth. Just think about that and model that out. It's substantial. Right? I fired five different CPA firms over the course of building businesses over 15 years. I finally found the right one. And I also learned about the tax code and realized that the tax code is really a series of incentives for business owners and investors. But you need to understand how to be able to tap into those what things to invest in. We have an oil and gas fund that can actually offset active income. Right. A lot of people don't realize that, but you can take a hundred percent of your investment, reduce your income, and you could bring down your income to zero. You could actually reposition a 401k and pay all those taxes through investing in, you know, this type of asset class, for instance. Right. So tax strategy is super, super key around your infrastructure. And let's also talk about wealth preservation. We all want to grow our wealth, but we also need to put things into place to preserve and protect our wealth and build a fortress around it. So do we have the proper estate Planning, are we doing advanced planning right around everything that we're building? You know that that's very key infrastructure to be able to set up. And then of course, part of this is the infinite banking strategy as well. You know, it is such a multiplier and I know your audience is very familiar with the strategy, so, you know, we don't have to get into the details, but it's such a multiplier, right? And this is one of the key lessons that I've learned from the ultra wealthy is that anytime they make a move on the chessboard or they're deploying capital, they're doing it where they're going to get multipliers. You know, you're getting tax free appreciation, right? You've got liquidity that you can borrow against this, right? To invest in the next opportunity or to have more efficiency. Think about all these streams of passive income that you have. Where are you going to put that? You don't want to put it in your checking account, put it into your policy, right? Until you can save up for the next tranche of when that next opportunity might present itself yourself, right? So you can de risk yourself and also again, you know, have this multiplier. So it's, it's just such a powerful strategy and you know, many of, you know, family offices, high net worth, ultra wealthy, this is a cornerstone to their policy. So everyone should have this. So that's, you know, that's what we wrap into building an infrastructure in phase three. Wow.

Wow, that's awesome. Vern, any thoughts on, on the first three phases so far? I know, I know you locked in on phase one right away, but I'm curious how you see phase three coming about.

Well, yeah, no, this is really, really fascinating and there's a lot of things in here that I could kind of pull out this, this sort of circles back to phase one, but I'd just love to hear your perspective on this, Dave, because clearly you have to have desire, you have to be disciplined. And we're, and, and sometimes when people hear these things or, hey, I have this plan or these objectives, for some reason we like think we have to be perfect and nobody's perfect. So I just, if you could spend a few minutes just sharing what are some of the habits that you've developed or what are some things that the listeners can do for themselves. Let's say you're just starting out. Let's say maybe you're just kind of doing the regular thing. You know, you're working a job, you're trying to Take care of your family, all that kind of stuff. And, and sometimes you can't see change. You can't see that it's even possible. And maybe you start and we fall off, or you had a bad day or what do you kind of do? I'm going to use, for lack of better terms, like in those dark moments, what do you do when things maybe aren't going the way that you want them to go, even though you're putting in the work? Because we know, we've all been there. It's tough the day to day, right? The big picture stuff sounds great, but then you got to put in the work. What do you say to people who are maybe struggling a little bit or they had a couple things of, of, let's say, for lack of better terms, maybe luck isn't going so well, or they had a couple of what could be perceived as losses. What do you say to those folks to keep their mind.

Oh, yeah, sure, Vernon. So, you know, first I'll give the caveat that this is not for everyone, okay? If, if you have a big vision for life and you know, you're dreamlining big and you want to accomplish a lot in life, it's up to you to be able to achieve it. You know that. That's why I said it all starts with you at the beginning, right? And it's mindset, so you need to work on things. And you know, my kids are in their 20s now, so this is, you know, we talk about this a lot and I work on myself, you know, every day, right? So whether you're, you know, whether that's learning things like meditation, for instance, which I think is probably one of the top three skills to have in life, right? Start to control your mind, right? And, and you know, know, take out all of the noise and you can be more rational in how you make decisions, right? Because as humans we're really evolved to, you know, it's all about fight or flight, so we're kind of looking for that danger. We're always looking for that stress. But if you can work on yourself, right, with techniques such as meditation or, you know, other things like ex, you know, even basics like exercise and eating, right? It's very interesting how that can all kind of, you know, grow upon itself. So now you start to get more clarity or when you're making a decision, you're making a decision in a state of peak performance, right? So you can, you, you can be clearer, you can be more confident and moving ahead or solving those, you know, difficult and challenging times. That you might have.

So I think what you're saying is that, you know, Olympic athletes, when they're competing in Olympic events, they're probably not thinking about how they're going to pay the food bill at that moment when they're in the event, they're just focusing on what's going on in the event because it's peak physical event and that's where their brain and their focus and their energy is. I think there's kind of a, you know, if you, if you imagine someone who's a high performing athlete doing what they do as an athlete, they're only working on that one thing. That's the, they're, they're laser beamed in the event of doing what they must and they're not being distracted by the other aspects of life. And so I think the, the takeaway point is, is that idea of one trigger area of your life that overlaps in other ones is your health and that sort of thing. And so a lot of people know, hey, you go have a good workout, even though you didn't want to go there, but after it's all done, you're like, ah, you know, you feel pretty good. It sets you up for the, for a good day. You hear that stuff so commonly, especially with high performing entrepreneurs. So that is a, that is a habit that's creating a result outside of the workout. It's obviously creating one in the workout, but it overlaps in everything else in your life. And so I think that that root core of phase one and then the ability to have those, those tools in place as you're working on your financial iq, your health iq, et cetera, and the way I look at you indicating health IQ to me, that's okay. Getting clear about what you eat, doing a little bit of research, getting clear on what's going to make sense for you. Starting getting committed. Financial IQ is a lot to do with taking the time to meet with a coach, connect with an individual, learn about new strategies, learn about new opportunities, be exposed to those things. It's through your exposure to you, to them that it elevates your understanding. You know, you could put some stuff about derivatives in front of me and you know my brain's gonna gloss over because I just don't care to learn about something. It's not of interest to me. But if you put something about multifamily real estate or storage units and you know, a fund of storage units that's going to be created that you know, produces XYZ passive cash flow. Oh well, that sounds really interesting to me. So there's certain things that your brain's naturally going to get connected to and triggered to, and it's like a, it's like a filtering system that allows you to say, oh, this is an area I should go spend some more time and due diligence on and enhance my financial IQ in this category. And I don't need to spend time worrying about all this other stuff, stuff because I found a niche that I can really delve into deeply. You know, Warren Buffett, he doesn't invest in everything. He gets really clear about a niche, about what it is that he wants and what he's doing, and then he throws a bunch of money at it and he just duplicates that process repeatedly. So why would you do anything different? I think it's kind of my understanding, it's my interpretation of when I think about the financial IQ aspect. But would you say I'm on track with that, Dave?

Yeah, I think you're on track. And then I'd like to just expand a little bit more on working, you know, working on yourself, right. Because this has been such an evolutionary journey for me. So, you know, I was raised in a middle class family, right. And it was all about, you know, hard work. And when I was in the Marines, right, It was the first person in, in the day. It's the last person to leave. You know, you're absolutely doing everything. And I've always been very actively involved in my health and exercise and doing these different things. And there was a period of time where I always struggled by saying, like, wow, you know, I gotta cut the workout short or should I do it better longer? Be this workout longer or harder because, you know, it's better for my health, but then I'm gonna get to work late and all of that. And I just, you know, for listeners out there, I, I can't stress enough. It's been such an evolution for me to realize that, that you're working on yourself is absolutely the most crucial time of your day. The, you know, whether you have an hour or you have two hours for that, you know, morning routine, that exercise. Because think about it, that's when we do our best thinking. Not only are you working on your health again, you're taking control of, you know, your, your mindset, you're being in a peak performance. And now that's when you're asking those decisions, you know, those questions to yourself, right? The right way, right? But if you don't work out, because you say, well, I gotta hurry up and get to the office and then make this happen. You know, I, I, I've got to get in there. I've got all these urgent things. So you skip the workout. Well, your whole day is gonna suffer. Right. And when's the last time you had a good idea sitting at the office, at your computer? It's more like when you're in the shower, when you're on a bike ride, when you're on a run. Right. That's when these things happen. Or when you're dreaming big to be able to do that. So I really encourage people to, you know, be serious about, you know, how you invest in yourself, how you see yourself, and really make time for that and, you know, life just really blossoms for you.

Yeah, that's really good, Dave. Again, what I'm hearing, Sometimes I chat with people. I'll literally sit with clients and I'll ask them, like, let's say I'm talking. I'm a dad. I'm a husband. So I'm talking. Let's say I'm talking to dad for a second. And I say, say, hey, Rich, just curious, like, you have your lovely wife here with you, and you're doing all this stuff for your family, right? Oh, yeah, yeah, of course. Working hard, putting money away, all that stuff. Working on myself. Like, who is the most important person that you need to take care of? And it's about 50, 50. Sometimes they look at the wife, and I get it. I know you love your wife. But sometimes people will actually say, oh, well, me. I go, great, tell me more about that. Because they recognize I like to say I'm redefining selfish. Because people always hear, oh, you're being selfish. And it's always, like, it's a context thing, right? Like, like being selfish is a bad thing, because that's the way that a lot of times people think about it. But what I'm hearing is you need to be actually selfish. You need to work on yourself. You need to get into a routine. You need to think about what's important, what matters to you, so that you can be the person you need to be to take care of everybody else. Because if you're always taking care of everybody else and something happens to you, then you're not making much of a difference for anybody else.

Right?

Right.

Yeah, you just, you just nailed it. Vernon, if, if you can't take your care of yourself, you can't take care of everyone else. And the more you can take care of yourself, the, like, the more depth that you have to that, the more that you can Give. Right. And that's what our business, that's what everything I do is predicated on now. It's really a passion project to, you know, help other people discover all of these things. Right. So how can I do that and be the. My best self? You know, it's working on myself to be able to deliver.

River yeah, it reminds me of the, of the, you know, the airline analogy. Of course, they do that safety demonstration every time without fail, every time I get on a plane. And they say, okay, well, hey, if you're traveling with anyone else, if these little funny masks come down, make sure you put that on so that you can properly be oxygenated to go help the person that you love and care about. So you got to put your oxygen mask on first. And, and I think what's really interesting about that is even talking about, about again with infinite banking and sometimes we're talking about, you know, policy design for, for a family structure. Similarly, usually the person making that decision is often the, the financial head of household. Maybe they're not the per. They might not be the person that makes the most amount, but they're usually the one that handles all the money. You know, it's often the case in most households. And, and so we need to think about, okay, well, who stands to, you know, how is the family going to be impacted if we lose you? If you know, where all the money is, how's the family going to be impacted if we lose the primary breadwinner? How's that going to happen? Because a lot of people say, oh, well, I should get the policy on my kids or my grandkids. Okay, well, that's great. That's cool. Absolutely. You should probably go do that. But have we put your oxygen mask on yet first? You know, who do we need to get the protection on to maximize the potential of a legacy if something happens tomorrow? And so that's a good way of thinking about measuring de risking, like you talked about earlier, relative to ancillary risks. Not just the risks of our investment path, but the risks of general life, like just getting in a car and driving down an interstate. You know, certainly in Canada, six months out of the year when there's snow on the ground, that's pretty risky. So the more we can de risk that for the family through the, through quality insurance actually adds a lot of value and adds a lot of peace of mind. Peace of mind allows you to work more on yourself is one way I look at it. If we kind of take that full circle. Circle. Now, Dave, this has been absolutely Incredible. I love what you're doing. I love the holistic wealth strategy. I love what it means for people who are embracing that mindset in that, in that aspect. And so, you know, one of the things that we like to do here when we are looking at, you know, closing out our program is we like to ask one key question. Now, of course, you do have this really epically cool background that you showed up to the, to the show with today, which is cool. But what we don't see is a flowing cape behind you now. Now, you may not think of yourself as a hero, but based on the way you wrote your book, based on how that book is impacting people, how the idea of the holistic wealth strategy is actually showing up and getting people, as Vern indicated, to be selfish so that they can work on themselves to work on the people around them even more and more. Really our question for you is who.

Do you most want to be a hero to?

Yeah, really great question, Richard. I want to be hero basically to, you know, my, my family, my loved ones and my clients. Right. Who are typically entrepreneurs on this journey as well. They have, you know, they're very ambitious. Right. And are looking to achieve a lot. And you know, I'm trying to be an expert in my lane in trying to bring value to them. So yeah, it's definitely focused, you know, on our core clients which are mostly entrepreneurs or, you know, high net worth investors.

Love it. Awesome. And now if someone wants to get ahold of you, other than getting a copy of that incredible book, which I'm sure is available on Amazon, what would be one of the best ways for them to reach out and connect with you?

Yeah, for sure. So we actually have some bonus materials that are pretty cool from the book, including a calculator on a 401k exit calculator. If you're actually to reposition that 401k into let's say the real estate asset class and what could that could do? So, and we have some other things there, but you can just go to our website at pantheon invest.com forward/wealth strategy and, and you can get the downloads there.

Love it. That's fantastic. Thank you for that gift. I'm sure a lot of people will be checking that out. 401k and the RSP being very similar animals separated simply by that silly border. But we've been, we've been, you know, working with a giant eraser, just kind of trying to race that border anyway as far as it comes to the idea of infinite into banking and having a robust and powerful financial life. So absolute pleasure having you with us here today. This is so amazing. Dave, thanks for joining us on the program. Now, for anyone watching, of course, on YouTube, you're going to see an amazing video that just popped up down below. Go ahead and click on that. Continuing your journey of learning as always. And we can't wait for you to tune into another one of our great programs. Thanks so much, Dave. Appreciate it.