Birth to Net Worth with Devin Brrr

Join us as we unravel our deep-rooted relationship with money, from earliest memories to eureka moments and building wealth. Birth to Net Worth with me, Trystan Trenberth. Well, everybody, welcome to Birth to Net Worth. Slightly different setting today. We're on safari, studio safari, and we're here at the Hungry Investor Studios. And today, happy to introduce Devin Burt. Devin, how are you? Thanks for spending your time with us.

Of course, man. Thanks for having me. Awesome.

So we're going to talk about evolution of our perception of money and our relationship with it. Tell us about your first experience or your first memory of money.

Man, when it comes to money, I was brought up in a family that saw a lot of scarcity. So one of 6 siblings and dad would go around shutting lights off thinking we couldn't have lights on. Lights don't go off that much energy. Yeah, but it was just that scarcity mindset and constantly when we walk indoors, if we didn't shut the door right away, my dad, he's like, shut the door. Yeah, we're not air conditioning the whole neighborhood. Yeah. And he got that from his dad. So my grandpa would do the same thing. So just came from a mindset of scarcity. And I remember I would get one pair of shoes a year and just that's kind of how I was programmed from a young age, just thinking that there wasn't a lot of money. Which is definitely a lie.

Yeah. It's more money every day as we know now, isn't it? There is. So kind of what age was your first memory of that experience? Was that kind of, you know, 4, 6, 8 years old? Because many different, you know, I remember a bit having an ice cream ball. We used to have 99s in the UK. It was like an ice cream cone with a chocolate flake in the top. And it was 99, it was 99 pence. So kind of something like that stuck in my head. You know, some people we've talked to, you know, they remember their mom not being able to afford the electricity bill or the phone bill. And, you know, parents arguing. Was it something that they, you know, they bought you something? You remember a number at the store? Was there a particular, you know, genesis event that kind of made you feel that money was great, money was bad, or there wasn't any?

I just always thought there wasn't a lot of money.

Yeah.

Just from the fact that my parents always had that scarcity mindset. Like, we'd have to do— for school, we'd put clothes on layaway. So some people even remember what layaway is. I think it kind of shows my age a little bit. I'm approaching 40. But, um, we'd go to— I want to say Target or Walmart. Yeah. And we'd do our school shopping and we put it on layaway. So we couldn't get the clothes right away. Yeah, you have to pay for it over time, and then we'd get them. So just those little things and having hand-me-downs. And like I said, one pair of shoes a year is all I got. Yeah. Just always had a thought that like, I want more things, just my parents can't afford them. Yeah, right.

Yeah.

So I wanted more than one pair of shoes. I wanted all the Nike stuff, all the, all the cool stuff that everyone was wearing. But I was wearing the Walmart brand.

Yeah. You know, fair enough.

Yeah.

So what did you notice around you? Did you notice other people in similar positions? Obviously demographic-wise, schools can be similar, but there's obviously, there's, you know, usually a, a diversity of, of, you know, people at different schools. There are people with a bit more money sometimes. Did you notice kindness around you where people might be generous, whether it's kids or other adults that you noticed in life?

So where we lived, it was in Arcadia. Anyone familiar with Phoenix? It's Arcadia is kind of an affluent place, but we were on the edge of it. So we were right before like you crossed the street and you got ghetto kind of thing. And so we were like the, the poor people at the nice school. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. I remember in high school I saved up for a car and my dad said whatever I save up, he'll pay for half. Yeah. So I worked at Fazoli's, I was passing out breadsticks. That was my first job. And I saved up, I think, $900. So my dad paid $900, I got an $1,800 car, my first car, 1987 Honda Prelude. Yeah. Loved that car. But everyone else at my high school was getting BMWs, Mercedeses, and like, it just, it is what it is. Yeah. My parents couldn't afford that stuff.

And yeah.

At the time, being young, you don't have much skills, so you can't get that many jobs. You're going to pay a lot. Yeah. So I was working fast food and I sold shoes at one point. So just little things like that. And then once I could start affording things, I definitely stretched too much. I was buying things I really couldn't afford, getting credit cards, and then got into that, all that mess. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So what was the first time when relationship became more positive? You wanted more things. Did you work fast food? Was there a time where you became aware of a different level and approach to money than you had experienced before? As far as, you know, at the age of, what was it, about 42, 43, I read Rich Dad Poor Dad. Other people have had other aha moments through life where, you know, they saw things around them that gave them a different perspective. Did you go to college or did you study past sort of high school right away?

I got my first sales job selling long distance.

Yeah.

MCI. Oh yeah. Before everyone had cell phones. Yeah. And that's when I really started seeing a lot of just income for my age. Yeah. So I'm like 17 years old at the time and working part-time, so I'd work after school for 5 hours. I was probably making $1,500, $1,600 a week. So they were paid weekly. I was just really good at selling. So I ended up making some good paychecks and didn't have any bills. I had a Cricket cell phone, which was $50. Yeah. And then I had my car payment, which was like maybe $250. Yeah. And insurance, maybe $100 or whatever it was at the time. That was all my bills. So I spent a lot of money on stupid stuff. Yeah. And learned that things don't give you joy. Yeah, right. It's experiences that give you joy. It's relationships that give you joy. So I just learned that young that I can make all this money, but I can blow it on stuff that doesn't matter. Yeah, right. So that's kind of when the turning point happened. I'd say around 17, 18 years old.

Well, with the people around you, were they more experience-driven around money or were they also sort of you know, we're young, we buy things we don't need and maybe shouldn't, shouldn't buy due to being able to afford that type of thing. Was there a lot around you where people were a bit more diligent with what they spent the money on?

No, I had no mentor when it came to it. Like I said, parents didn't know. My dad, the biggest investing he ever did was his 401. Yeah, that's it. Yeah. So he didn't know how to multiply money. He didn't know how to get into real estate. He didn't know how to invest anything like that. Yeah. Friends, like, I feel like when you're, when you're young, you just kind of want to fit in. You don't want to be the person that stands out. The person that stands out is usually the one that, you know, is successful, right? So as a kid, you just want to fit in with everybody. Yeah. So I was hanging around a lot of people that just didn't know about money either, right? So it did. It took me till probably 34 years old till I really started to learn how money worked. Did well in my careers. I ended up doing mortgages, making six figures every year. Yeah, but just didn't know that, hey, if you put into a 401, it's like the worst place you can put it. Yeah, I would buy cars and finance them and pay the bank interest. So once I learned how money actually worked at 34 years old, getting around investors, getting around people that are really wealthy. Yeah. I clung on, I hung on to that as much as I could. That's when I started really researching, reading books, watching podcasts, and just YouTube University like no other.

It's amazing, our community. You said about fitting in. I think when we were around some of the people that we're around now, there's really belonging. We all feel, we think along the same lines, we have the same intention, we have the very collaborative mentality and raising others up. And that belonging is very important to find. And when you were younger, I think we brought up through school to don't cheat, don't copy the people's work next door, don't help. That divides people. But when we get to this belonging, we understand the collaboration and supporting each other, specializing in areas, somebody in, you know, finance, somebody in, you know, note holding, flipping, all of these different specialist areas. We can all support each other in moving forward more powerfully. Right. So tell me about Quicken Loans. That was obviously a finance background there. What did it take you time-wise to learn what you learned in the mortgage industry? And how much of that have you kind of brought over to real estate? Because real estate has been a big part of your last few years, but transitioning more towards the whole life policies as I understand it. What are the things that you really brought over that meant that was worth your time in that mortgage industry, I suppose?

I think the biggest thing was just numbers, knowing numbers.

Yeah.

Because that's all you deal with mortgages. You have to look at an interest rate. If you tell me an interest rate and like an amount of a mortgage and a term, I can give you pretty much what the payment will be. It'll be close. Yeah. Just 'cause I've looked at so many numbers over the years. And in school, I wasn't really ever good in school. I got bad grades except for in math.

Right.

So I was always good at math. I always enjoyed numbers. And I think that really helped me out in real estate 'cause I could underwrite a property really quick. Yep. Just by looking at it and I could tell it's a deal or it's not a deal just by seeing some basic numbers. Yeah. So I think that helped a lot. And then having actually my wife who's still in the mortgage industry helps out when we're exiting deals. If we're going to hold on to it. Yeah, I sell it to her as the end buyer. So it just works out well that she's still there. And I brought a lot of just the, the math and the background from that into real estate.

I mean, it's amazing the complexity of the debt, but the simplicity of the debt. In its, in its basic form. Right. You know, we grew up learning, you know, credit cards are bad. You know, when I grew up, it wasn't a great thing to have that we were told. But the way you can leverage this debt is a good, positive way is, is so different from how conventional thinking goes.

Debt is one of the best things ever if you use it properly. So you've got good debt, you've got bad debt. And you learned this probably from Rich Dad Poor Dad. Yeah, that's actually the first book I ever actually read from COVID to cover. Yeah. High school, they'd tell you to read the first book assignment. Yeah. I would turn to the back of the book. Yeah. And read that and somehow do a book report on the back of the book and somehow pass. I don't know. Yeah. But Rich Dad Poor Dad, I actually read, found out what a liability was, what an asset was, how there's good debt, there's bad debt. So I'm sure your listeners know, but bad debt, something that takes money out of your pocket. Yeah. Good debt. Puts money in your pocket. Yeah. So for instance, if I own a property on a mortgage, let's say the mortgage is $1,000 a month, that's the debt. Yeah. But I've got a renter in that house paying $1,500 a month. Their $1,500 is paying my bad debt. Yeah. I'm keeping the spread or the arbitrage on that money. $500. Yeah. I'm not paying the debt.

They're paying the debt.

Right. So it's— there's just a difference in if you can figure out how to use debt to leverage and have other people's money— OPM, everyone's heard that. Yeah, you're just basically using somebody else's money, the banks, whoever's, to go make more for you. As long as you can make more than what the debt payment is. Yeah, it's good debt.

Yeah. So getting into real estate, what was your kind of entry into real estate as far as mortgage industry to You've had this aha moment and, you know, we've gone through a few really great years in real estate. I've done a few flips. You've done quite a number of flips too. How did you enter that game? Have you had any sort of low moments in life with relationship with money that bounce back? Because a lot of people get to a low point, they bounce back because they find something along the way as they've been— the mountain isn't a linear path upwards.

It's not. So I had a really down point in my life when I was 31. So this was 2016. I was living in a one-bedroom apartment. It was me and my daughter. I was a full-time single father. Her mom lived out of state. So we're living in this one-bedroom apartment and I was down to $300 to my name. That's all I had. Yeah, the rent was like $1,300. So I could not make that next rent payment. I had to break my lease. Yeah. And I moved my daughter and I in with a friend of mine. I rented one bedroom from him in his house. I think it was $400 a month he charged me. Yeah. So just to afford that, I had to sell my bed. I had to sell a lot of my belongings. I had a mattress on the ground. So that's what me and my daughter were sleeping in. And I'm thinking at that time, like, I'm at rock bottom, right? 31 years old. I thought I'd be successful at this point. Yeah, I got this little girl that counts on me, and I thought I was at rock bottom. Got my heart ripped out of my chest. Woman that I put on a pedestal, I thought I was going to marry, she broke my heart. And I wear my heart on my sleeve, so I was, uh, sitting with my daughter one day. It was October 22nd, 2016. I remember the day. I'm on the edge of that bed, hands on my knees, head down. My daughter's on like my phone or something, a game. I just start breaking down profusely, like crying, just bawling my eyes out. I had never cried in front of my daughter before, and she starts crying because I'm crying. So since she's crying, I'm crying more. Yeah. You know? Yeah. And finally, when I get enough strength to like tell her what's wrong, because she's asking, Daddy, what's wrong? Daddy, what's wrong? I just look at her and I say, am I a good dad? It was— I thought suicide came a lot. Like I planned it out in my head several times. And I'll never forget this little girl. She lifts my chin up. And she looks me dead in the eyes. She says, you are the best daddy. Gives me this big hug. I get goosebumps every time I think about it because that girl saved my life, man. Yeah, I was, I was, that was rock bottom. But the fact that she still saw me as this superhero, the best daddy ever, even though who knows if I really was. Yeah, right. She saw me as that. The older she would get, she would start realizing the real me. Yeah, the real me wasn't someone ever worked on himself. It wasn't someone who ever read books. Like I said, I never read a book until Rich Dad Poor Dad. Yeah. So that was October 22nd. I realized I have to work on me or I'm not— nothing's going to change. Yeah. Outside circumstances aren't going to get any better. You know what I mean? Nothing is going to change unless I change. So I started reading books. Every night I would read books in bed with her. She'd fall asleep and I'd just keep reading. First one was Rich Dad Poor Dad. I started watching YouTube videos. I started listening to podcasts on the way to work. Instantly I started making more money. Yeah. And this is the craziest part that happened October 22nd, 2016. Yeah. November 27th, 2016. First date with my now wife. Wow. So one month of working on me, I start making more money. I meet my soulmate. We've now been married for 4 years. She's incredible. Like, there wouldn't be a me without her. Like, she gives me the ability to be me. Yeah. So just it all started from— I hit rock bottom at 31, and now I'm 38, multimillionaire, like several hundred thousand dollars a month in income. Yeah. So I do very well and a lot of passive income. We can take trips around the— around the world, which we've done. I've been able to help a ton of people here and it all just comes from— I first worked on me. Yeah, that's it. Yeah.

As parents, we want to put our kids' needs ahead of our own. And I've had the same realization of working on myself, you know, even, even this weekend I was at Mastermind weekend. There's been realizations there about the, the 4 different types of people. The people that self-serving, that cause benefits themselves and loss to other people. There's the people that create benefits for other people and losses to themselves. People that create losses for themselves and losses for other people that destructive, basically. And then you've got the people that create the win-win, the intelligent people. And it's amazing if we're not careful how much of ourselves we give away and dump our own. And it's not being selfish, it's just building ourselves up. You know, it's like building the muscle. The more you work the muscle, the stronger you are, the better you can help pick up the ladies, you know, crossing the road, a bag, or whatever it is that you need to help, right? The more our heart is strong, the more we can, you know, love and help other people. Outside of ourselves. So it's an incredible thing that not, not enough people realize early enough. It's not wrong that they don't. We'll follow our own journey and we'll find these things at the perfect time. But it is certainly something that's so powerful to every one of us to work on ourselves.

So important. Think about when you're on an airplane. Every time you're on an airplane, they do the same announcement. Like, we've all heard it, right? Yeah, buckle your seatbelt, put this into that. It's In the rare case of an emergency, the air masks come down. What does it say? Yours on first, then help someone else. Because the fact of the matter is you can't help anyone else unless you've already helped yourself. Yeah, I always look at it as like, take this, for example, this, this bottle of water. I can only put so much water in here, right? Yeah. I can only put so much soda in here. I know I put so much juice in here, it's going to eventually overflow. Yeah, right. So you want to look at yourself that same way. Fill yourself up. Fill yourself up with love, with, with, with value, with generosity. Fill yourself up to the brink. Yeah. Eventually you're going to overflow. And that's what that overflow— overflow is what's going to help other people. Yeah, right. Because if you're, if you're running on empty, you've got no value to give anybody. Absolutely. You can't help anybody. That's where I was in when I was 31. Yeah, I was not full, so I couldn't help anyone else. My value was very low, so my, my financial outlook on everything was low. I wasn't getting paid a lot because I didn't have a lot of value to give. The more valuable I've gotten, the more money I've made because it just spills over to other people.

Makes sense.

Yeah, absolutely.

I think that's a great analogy that bottle or any, you know, receptacle. We've heard of the cup, but it really— when, when people don't realize that they're giving them away, same with a relationship with money, we take on our parents' view, or a, you know, a morphed version of our parents' perspective on money. The same we do of ourselves as well. I watched my parents give away so much of their time and energy to other people, I took that on myself as well. So it's hard to not be in a position of keeping yourself full unless you, you know, you make that purposeful, you know.

100%.

So we almost missed real estate, but you left the mortgage industry, you found this wonderful woman that's now in your life, and then real estate came around at the same time. Is that right?

Yeah. So what happened was I met my wife, 2016. And then just started doing better work, started saving more money.

And you're still at Quicken Loans at this point?

Quicken Loans. That's where we met, right? Met her. She was new there. I'd been there for a little bit, so she was a new girl. I made sure to snag her before anyone else did. But yeah, so I started making more money, started saving more, started maxing out my 401. But as you make more money, you start paying more taxes. Bracket creep. Higher those bracket gets, the more they take. Yeah. So, but that's what I was taught. Make more money, make more money, work up the corporate ladder. And I realized that as I did that, I wasn't keeping more. I was putting into my 401, which makes no sense because I'm giving up control of the money now when it's worth the most to have access to it later when it's worth less because of inflation.

And then you taxed on it.

Yeah. So people think, oh, I get a tax deduction. No, you get a tax deferral. Yeah, you're going to pay the taxes at some point later on when taxes are probably higher. It makes no sense. So but that's just again what we're taught. I was taught to save money in the bank. That's what I started doing. The bank, you get paid 0.06%. Yeah. Worst place you could put money. It's not protected against lawsuits, judgments. You know, banks fold all the time because they're insolvent. So it's just a bad place to put money. But that's what we're taught. Yeah, I had become successful. Most people's standards, but I was just over broke. Yeah. And I realized that and I was unhappy. I was unhappy working for somebody else. I never liked being told what to do from a young age. My parents would tell me something to do and I would have a fit. Idiot. And just that's how I was as an employee. I was the worst employee, really good at what I was doing, but I was a bad employee. Yeah. So I've always wanted to be my own boss. And I just always gravitated towards real estate because we all see the shows Flip or Flop. It seems sexy to flip a property. I just thought I could do that. You know, I was at work one day, I remember, and I was scrolling through Instagram and I saw one of Templeton Walker, great guy out here, real estate friend of mine. We've been friends for a while. And I saw he had just bought a property doing a flip and I'm like, I should reach out to Tim, see if I can ride along for a day. Hit him up like, Templeton, how much do I have to pay you to ride along for one day and see how you do things? I'm a very visual learner. So if I see someone do it, I can implement it. He said, dude, you don't have to pay me anything. You're my homie. Let's hang out. So I ride along for a day. He closes a wholesale deal for $15,000. We're going around to these flips. We're We're buying properties, we're checking stuff out and like just shaking and moving. I was like, this is incredible. I like this. Yeah. So I started looking for deals because I'm thinking only value I can really bring him is my time when I'm not working at Quicken. Yeah. Find deals, bring them to him. He knows what to do with that. Yeah. So we worked out somewhere we'd split 50/50. If I find the deal, we'd partner on it, split 50/50. So I'm searching everywhere for deals. 2 weeks into that, I find an off-market deal in Chicago and I locked it up for $19,000. It was a 6-unit building. Oh, I'm 19, dude. I'm thinking I'm going to make like $200 grand. Yeah, right. Yeah. So on an assignment fee. Yeah. $100 for me, $100 for him. I'm like, this is crazy. So at Quicken, I was making around $200. I'm thinking I'm going to make half of that on this one deal. It took 2 weeks. So I walk into Quicken the next day. This was October 8th. Yeah, 2019. I'm thinking I'm going to start making all this money. Didn't know wholesaling is not that easy. And I quit. I just told them I'm resigning today. So October 8th, I circled that on my calendar. Walked out, drove to Templeton's office. I was like, dude, we got this deal. Let's do it. We did not make $200,000. That deal, I didn't know Chicago, you needed a lawyer. It's an attorney state. So we went like 2 or 3 months without an attorney. So then we had to get an attorney. Didn't make that. I think I made like $18,000 after 4 months. That was my first deal. And then I started going to local meetups, started just shaking hands with people, getting JV deals, using Templeton's— his reputation almost to give me credibility.

Sure.

Yeah. And that's when I started doing some flips. And I think by March of 2020, I had done 4 flips and like 4 or 5 wholesale deals. So I was doing pretty well. But then COVID hit. Yeah, meetups went away. Yeah. So I had to pivot a little bit.

Yeah, that was an interesting time. That was probably 9 months after I got in. I did the Rich Dad Education after I started in 2019 and then found another community early 2020. And it was just a strange time. I had a, I had a W-2 still at the time, so it wasn't such a hit to me. But in some ways, it would have been better for it to be a hit for me to know what I have to pivot, right? I was just working out from my day job, which I'd mostly done already. Um, but by that point, it was, do we keep going, go harder, or do we back off? I just kind of carried on at the light rate that I was doing.

It wasn't a lot.

Had two kids to deal with, with, you know, back and forth to parents, and not a lot happened for me. I didn't make a lot happen. But a lot of other people doubled down. And I know that, you know, a lot of the— let's call them leaders in the area rather than gurus— but a lot of them got together and decided, right, what are we going to do? And that's what I love about this area too, is that these people will get together, they'll sit down and figure out, well, well, I'm up for it, I'm going to keep going. Or other people are like, I'm going to sit out for a couple of months. And a lot of decisions were made that day, you know, life-changing decisions for the people that either hadn't really got going and decided they were going to double down, or some of the ones that were established that decided to hang back and maybe didn't make so much of the, you know, look at Warren Buffett. They say if he'd started 5 years later in life, he may have had half the net worth that he has now just because of the power of compounding. Same in COVID. I think a lot of decisions were made that made a lot of difference in people's lives one way or another.

Right. That's the thing I like about Phoenix is there's so much collaboration. Yeah, so much. And just good people. If you find the right tribe out here. Yeah, there's some bad there's some bad apples, but for the most part, everyone's just a good person, good to collaborate with. And the power of compounding, that is something that I have taken a hold of. Yeah. And it's just so powerful. Like Albert Einstein said, it's the 8th wonder of the world. Like, he who understands compound interest earns it. He who doesn't pays it. Yeah. So if you can understand that compounding takes time and the longer you give it, the bigger it gets, It's a very powerful thing.

And this is where stepping back from the emotional investing takes a big difference because people say, oh, Tesla shares are going up, let's buy some, or they're going down, or crypto's going down, sell, sell, sell. That's completely the wrong move. That's like bad debt right there. If you are just going to buy something and sit on it, you've got to trust over time and that's going to compound and make you a lot of money.

Right. And what does Warren Buffett say? Buy low, Sell high. Yeah. So and it also says when there's— it's when there's blood in the streets. What is the saying?

It's kind of buy more, pretty much, isn't it?

Yeah. So basically when people are greedy, be— that's what it is. When people are greedy, be scared. When people are scared, be greedy. Right, right. Yeah. So yeah, when things go down, most people think, oh, I got to sell or I'm going to lose all the money. No, when things go down, you should be buying more. Yeah, right. When things go up, that's when you should sell. But most people, things are going up like— think about crypto. Everyone's like, it's going to the moon, let's buy it all up. But yeah, they're buying it at the top and then it drops down and they start selling and they lose money. So another thing that Warren Buffett says is never lose money. Yeah, because if you lose 50%, you have to earn 100% just to get back where you're at. Absolutely.

Yeah.

You know, so it's one of those things where if you just learn these little things when it comes to investing and hold true to them. Yeah. You're going to be in great shape.

Yeah. So several flips in, some short-term rentals, some BRRRRs, as we know is your name. What did that lead to next? Because this is really your big thing in life right now is helping people. Be— you call it being in the bank. Yeah. Tell us about how you found that, what that's done for you, where you found it, and really tell us all about it. I want to hear so much about that. Yeah.

So yeah, I did some real estate up until March of 2020. Like I said, I was getting all my deals from going to meetups, and then meetups went away because of COVID So I'm just sitting in my house and I'm like thinking back to 2016 when my life got better. What did I do? Yeah, I learned that. I was reading books, I was watching podcasts, I was listening to YouTube videos. I was just trying to get better. Yeah. So that's what I did during lockdown. I'm listening to a podcast, Steve Trang, Real Estate Disruptor. Yeah. And this guy Chris Nagle is on there. He's talking about becoming the bank. And it really made sense to me because of being at Quicken. I understood how interest rates worked. Yeah. Like people think that the interest rate is what matters. Yeah, it's not. It's the volume of interest.

Yeah.

So think about if you have a 2.99% interest rate on your mortgage. Yeah. For 30 years and you pay on it, you pay on it, you pay on it for 6, 7 years and it goes down to, let's say, 1.9%. Everyone thinks I got to get that 1.9%.

Yeah.

So they get the 1.9% and they reset to 30 years. Utilization. Yeah. So the first like 8 years of a mortgage, 83%, 83% goes to interest. Yeah. The banks know that most people do not keep a mortgage for more than 8 years. Yeah, they sell, they refinance. So it's all about the volume. Yeah, they'll reset and get more volume. It's not about the rate. Yeah. So I understood that and I was thinking, well, the bank makes a ton of money understanding volume of interest. Yeah. I understand volume of interest. If I can be the bank, I can make a ton of money just by taking that function. Yeah. And we all use a bank. Yeah, everyone does.

Yeah.

Everyone has banking needs. You have to borrow money to buy a house. You have to borrow money to get in a car. You got to use credit cards to go travel, whatever, right? Yeah. All of our money flows somewhere to a bank, right? Yeah. So I'm thinking if you can become your own bank, you borrow from yourself, pay yourself what you would have paid the bank. Nothing's different. You're just controlling who gets the interest. Yeah, because you guys can all look this up. Out of every dollar that somebody makes, after-tax dollar, $0.35 of that goes to interest alone. That means if you can just keep that $0.35, you know, instead of paying it to a bank, you just became 35% wealthier. Yeah. By simply keeping what you've been losing. So I learned about this on that podcast. I went down a rabbit hole learning about it. It's called Infinite Banking. Yeah, I read books, I watched YouTube videos, I read articles up at like 4 in the morning on my phone. My wife's like, what are you doing? I'm like, I'm about to change our lives. Yeah. So I learned about it and I'm like, I got to do this. So how do I do it? I heard about it from this dude, Chris Nagle. So I'm like, let me get on a call with him. Yeah. So I DM'd him on Instagram and he— I got on a call with him. I got a policy. Just so people know, it's a whole life insurance policy. Yeah, but it's structured for the cash value, not for the death benefit. Yeah. And that cash value allows you to be your own bank. So I got a policy. I started using it for all of my real estate, and I realized that I was able to multiply money because when you put money into a policy, it is guaranteed to grow. It'll never stop growing, guaranteed, and it'll be compounding. So again, to my point earlier, longer you give compound interest, the bigger it gets.

Yeah.

So the longer you have that policy, the more you can borrow against the cash. So you're always borrowing more. That means that you're always able to use more. If you're always able to use more, you can always go make more. Yeah. And if it's compounding in the policy and then you can use it to go do a real estate deal and you make money in that real estate deal, you're making money in two places. Yeah, I learned that. Okay, I can take it now. I've got this real estate deal. I can get an equity line of credit on this real estate deal. So I'm using more leverage. Yeah, I take that equity line, I go do a private lending deal.

Yes.

Now I'm making money here, here and there. Yeah. 3 places at the same time. Yeah. And I was like, this is incredible. I got to tell people. So I'm telling mom and dad, brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, friends, everyone that would listen. They're all looking at me like I was crazy. Yeah. And Finally, I got on social media and started making some posts about it. Yeah. Then it blew up. It was, I think, my third or fourth video on TikTok. This was December of 2020. It was me in my car talking about how I get all the money back for the cars I buy using infinite banking. I went to bed. I wake up the next morning, 17,000 followers. Wow. And I'm like, Okay, so I kept making those videos. Yeah. Within about a month I had 150,000 followers. Yeah. Everyone's asking me how to do it. They're like, how do I get a policy? So me, I'm just thinking, well, yeah, go to Chris Nagle. Chris Nagle. Go to Chris Nagle. I'm just sending everyone to Chris. Yeah. 10, 15, 20 people a day. And it hits me about a week in, I'm like, this is stupid.

Be the broker.

Why don't I be Chris Nagle?

Yeah.

So I got licensed and that was— I got my license March of '21 and I've set up over 1,500 policies since then. Yeah. So just using the concept, teaching people what I do, and then setting people up so they can do the same thing.

That's amazing.

It's been incredible.

So basically, not on death benefit, but cash benefit. I have one myself. And I understand that there's probably a sweet spot for getting a policy, probably the earlier the better. How young can somebody get a policy for maybe a child that they have and they, having them have the policy, they can insure one of their children's lives ultimately and not have the child as the beneficiary necessarily? Yep. In asset protection, obviously that's probably built into this as well.

So I've got 3 policies on my daughter. Yeah, I own them. So I put the money in, I use the money. She's the insured person. Yeah. God forbid my daughter passes away. I'm the beneficiary, so I would get the money, the death benefit. But you can do that as early as 2 weeks old, right? I think it's like 15 days old. So we have a daughter on the way in November. So this would be my second. She'll have a policy in December. Yeah. On her life. Yeah. So you say you figure again, compound interest takes time. Yep. If I'm putting money in when she is 2 weeks old. Yeah. By the time even she's 18.

Yeah.

If I'm putting a small amount of money, sure, there's going to be a ton of cash value in there. Absolutely. She wants to go to college. We're not going to borrow from a bank. You're not going to get a student loan. We're going to borrow from her policy, our bank. Yeah. And whatever a student loan would have charged us, So I'll do my research and say, okay, they would have done a 20-year amortization at 6% interest. Yeah, payment would be this.

You just throw it to that piece.

So I would have had to pay the bank that. Just pay it back to our bank because as soon as it goes there, yeah, I can reuse it. So I'm getting the interest that someone else would have got. Yeah. While my money continues to compound. Tax-free for the rest of my life. Yeah.

And what people may not realize is that you can use some of that money to go and buy a house that your daughter can be living in and charging other people rent, which is also increasing the return on that investment as well.

Yep.

And she's making money or your policy's making money while she's at college. So that's probably writing off probably most of, if not all of that debt as well.

Yep. So then, yeah, the renters pay down the policy loan.

Yeah.

That's all it is, a loan on your policy. Yep. And you never have to pay it back because it's just an advance of the death benefit. Yeah, they're basically just letting you pay your— you use your death benefit while you're alive. Yeah. And you're— the money you put in is the collateral. Yeah. To get that loan. So if let's say $100,000, you buy the house, the $100 grand, just to make math easy, and she rents that 2 bedrooms out to friends in college. Yeah. They're paying $400 a month each. Yeah. And let's say the mortgage is $500 a month. Yeah, the mortgage. Yeah, it's the loan from our policy. She would just pay $800 a month back to the policy. Yeah. As soon as it goes there, she can reuse it again. Yeah. So the money just constantly flows in and out. Yeah. The more it does it, the bigger it gets.

It's amazing, isn't it?

It's incredible. We've got 12 policies now. Yeah, I've got 3 on her, 3 on my wife. 4 on me, 1 on my mom, 1 on my dad. It's incredible.

So I could insure, I don't know, some famous sports person.

No, can't do that.

It's just got to be family.

Got to be someone you have a vested interest in, someone you want to see live for a long time. Got it. Kids, they're the easiest because if they're minors, you don't need their permission. If you insure your parents, you got to get their permission.

So minor is 18 or 21?

I believe a minor is 17 and younger. Got it. As soon as they're 18, they're considered an adult. Yeah. But yeah, from 2 weeks old till 17 years, 364 days old. Yeah. Minor. Insure that. Fantastic. You can insure business partners, you can insure spouses, you can insure brothers, sisters. Aunts and uncles are a little harder, but yeah, you can insure anyone that you want to live for a long time. Fantastic.

That's brilliant. So what does the current horizon look for you? You got your, do you call it an insurance brokerage where you can write policies? That's going to be your key business right now. Is there something you're looking to expand into or grow into through that or? In addition to that, another vertical?

Yeah, that's the key business right now. So just helping people set up policies. We've got 5 agents. So I make the content that gets leads to come in. Yeah. Into the funnel. And then the agents take the call. They all understand the concept. They have policies themselves. So it's just explaining the concept to people. It's never a sale. It's just explain it. And the calls generally, every single call ends with, cool, how do I do it? Yeah. And then we just set the policies up. So yeah, agent sets the policies up. I'll take overflow calls. So that's kind of the main thing now. And as far as like what we want to do with that, eventually I want to try to really tap into changing educational systems because I think the educational system is broke. Yeah. Kids don't learn anything about money. They don't learn anything about finance. They don't know anything about credit. I don't even think— we don't know anything about credit, right?

There's no financial literacy at all. I think Florida has just put something in where they're starting to teach some of the kids. But this is one of the reasons we did the podcast is because if the kids are financially illiterate, the parents are probably financially illiterate as well. So to reach children, we need to reach the adults. Right. And, you know, Mike Michalowicz wrote Pumpkin Plan and Profit First. You've read those. He wrote a book called My Money Bunnies. It was a scaled-down version of Profit First over about 25 pages for kids using 3 jars for money. So, you know, there's a company called GravyStack locally. I don't know if you come across them. They're a financial institution for kids. They have a banking product where I think they hired, I think it was Amazon's Amazon Pay creator to work for them and gamify a banking system for kids. So adults can kind of monitor what they're doing and get them educated. They've got a lot of like missions, as they call it, go and find out how many, you know, TV channels that you're not using that you can maybe cut back on some expenses, what other subscriptions are out there. They've got a lot of fun things for kids to do to make them aware of possible wastage, possible things they could save. And also leading later on to being able to invest in things that I think they've just got a fund at the moment to, you know, take that to the next level. Another, we interviewed them last season. Another company that we talked to was Toilet Paper Hands. It's kind of based on the stock market Diamond Hands and that type of stuff where, you know, this character was losing money all of the time. His buddy in the cube next door was telling him to, buy stuff to help raise the value of the shares he was buying. Then he was selling them and then not telling the other guy to sell them and he was losing money. So he's taught him, hey, pants. So they had a, they got an animation, they work with the UN. So really it's raising the awareness of adults to become more aware of the lack of knowledge we have and really to be able to inject more ideas into the adults so that they can grow, understand, and become more financial for more financially savvy and ultimately more confident. I love it. A friend of mine who's gonna come on in a couple of weeks, Troy, she and her son have written a book called Love, or sorry, Money: What's Love Got to Do with It? And it talks about 4 or 5 different examples of couples and their different experiences of money. You know, she gave a very vulnerable example of her marriages and the foreclosure that they had, but she's a bookkeeper now. She's gone through her journey with money. And I think it's so important for people to become as aware as they can early on. You know, simple budgeting, simple understanding what, you know, an overage would be with money and being short of money where, what can you do with this thing instead of becoming desperate and, you know, in really shitty positions where they're very low in life and, you know, not great opinions of themselves. So again, getting reading those books is some of those most important things we can do.

I think the problem, man, is so taboo. Yeah. You know, people like don't want to talk about money. Yeah. You kind of need money. Yeah. Right. All it is, money is just a means of exchange. Yeah. Right. So if I want to buy this water, I have to give some money to get the water. Yeah. Some cash. And if it was gum, if gum was the means of exchange, I need to get more gum so I can buy more things. Absolutely. Money is important. And I think people don't talk about it because it's taboo. Yeah. But I challenge people to start talking to their kids about money. Talk a lot about it. My daughter knows more about money than most adults just because she hears me talk about it all the time. We were at, we were at my niece's birthday party last year and my daughter's talking to one of the neighbors that was there, and I kind of hear them off in the distance talking a little bit. And they started talking about she just got a credit card. So I, I got a credit card with her as an authorized user. Yeah. So I put her on one of my cards and starting to build her credit. Yeah. When she's 15 years old. So she's talking about that and the neighbor's like, wow, you're pretty smart. What else do you know about? And then she started getting into infinite banking and be in the bank. Yeah. Tax deductions and all this stuff she hears me say. And I'm kind of listening and I'm like, a little tear's like falling down my eye because she's like, she's learning this stuff just from hearing me talk about it.

It's amazing.

So she's going to be dangerous. Yeah, but it's because I talk about money a lot and if people don't want to hear it, then you don't need to be around me.

Yeah, absolutely.

It's important. Yeah. I want to be around people that talk about money, how to get more, how to become wealthy. Because the more you have, one, the more problems you can solve. Yeah, right. The more you have, the more you can give.

Yeah.

We have a private family foundation, so we, we give to different charities and different things. With that private family foundation, I can pay next to zero taxes. So taxes are social capital. Yeah. You pay the taxes and it goes towards things for society, right?

Yeah.

Who knows if we agree on what it goes to. So you've got taxes that are social capital. So there's voluntary or involuntary— taxes are involuntary social capital. If you can control where that money goes. So if you put it into a foundation that you control. Yeah. And you're not paying taxes to the federal government, but you're making an impact to society in a way you feel comfortable with and you you're putting social capital in there that is voluntary. You're doing things that you feel are going to make a difference. Yeah. What the government thinks is going to make a difference. Yeah. Right. So I want to be around people to talk about this stuff. Yeah. And if people don't want to be around me because I talk about money and wealth all the time, sayonara.

Yeah. I mean, that taboo— people that go out every Friday night or every whatever it is of the week or many, many nights of the week sometimes, and it's we can't turn around and say, hey, I don't have the money for it, I'm going to stay home, right? How many other people in that group might think, oh, it's safe for me to stay home and not feel shame about not going out and looking the part and spending money I don't have? Because there's the expression, people buy things they don't need with money they don't have to impress people they don't like. And it's so true, it can be so broadly, you know, turned really. And if we could be more, you know, I've, I've hidden struggle for my kids over time. And now I look back and I think, oh, how different could that be for them if I didn't, whether it was emotional, financial, and otherwise. We do need to be that more open. I realize that now. I'm so, you know, talking about money with your daughter in that vulnerable moment on the bed, just, you know, pure, pure clarity and honesty. And, you know, change your life. I invite other people that could make that difference themselves just by being vulnerable and embracing something instead of, you know, resisting it.

100%. I have a podcast that I just started. So if anyone wants to listen to that, it's the Mr. Burr Show.

The Mr. Burr Show. We'll put a link right after here.

Yep. So it's B with 4 Rs. And I had Templeton Walker on. So again, mentor when I started real estate, one of my great friends. I love the guy. He was on, he was talking about you can either have social capital. Yeah. Or you can have true wealth. Can't have both. Rare. And social capital, meaning you're buying things just to impress other people. Yeah, right. So you're worried about the emblem on your car, you're worried about the designer clothing you're wearing, you're worried about your watch being a certain status symbol. But those people that are usually getting those things, are just barely getting by. Yeah. One month of like a down month and they are done. They're SOL.

Yeah. I mean, you drive through the hood and you got brand new Escalades and Dodge, whatever it is, on the driveways and it's sitting next to like an 800 square foot thing that's in super rough condition.

Yeah. And they're, they're financing these things. So you're paying interest to sell the house. Yeah. Right. So I've just learned that again from a young age when I was buying things all the time. And I was broke, but I had nice stuff. It didn't bring me joy.

Yeah.

So now, like, if I want nice stuff, I make sure I have an asset that's pumping off income to go buy it. Yeah. So for instance, like, I've got a nice watch. It's a Breitling watch. It's $10,000. I did not pay for this. My time was not traded to get this. Yeah, I have assets that pump off income. Yeah, they bought it. Right. So like, I like nice stuff, but I'm not going to trade my time to go get it. Right. Yeah. You know what I mean? Absolutely. And that's just something that a lot of people need to start following. You can either have social capital or true wealth. You can rarely have both. Yeah.

You know, so as your daughter grows older and you got another— is it another daughter on the way?

Yep. So I'll be—

so she's obviously soaked up so much from the dad she's so proud of. How can you guide her and what would you, what would you be recommending for her to sort of follow as far as maybe following in your footsteps or even just not following in footsteps? I think she's got such a great foundation already. There's much different message for her than would be so many other kids in this world.

Yeah, I think one of the big reasons that I've seen success in my life is I've failed a lot. Yeah, like I said, I've been on the brink of like wanting to take my own life. Yeah. And I think about like, like a caterpillar. Think about a caterpillar. It struggles its entire life to get out of that shell. Yeah, it struggles, struggles, struggles to get out of the shell. Once it finally gets out, what is it?

Butterfly.

Beautiful butterfly. Yeah, right. So struggle is something that you have to have. You have to have failure in order to see success. Michael Jordan was cut from his his varsity basketball team. Yeah, right. He's considered the greatest player of all time by most people. So my daughter hasn't seen struggle, really. Yeah. So I need to manufacture struggle somehow for her.

I think. But I bet she'll remember that moment and the way that you recount that to her over time in the future will have more and more meaning for her as she grows older. She understands what's around her because she'll see struggle around her and she can relate that back to that moment. Yeah. And that will be the impact on her is how you from rock bottom became, you know, the even more of a rock star than she thought you were at the time then and just sees the struggle around her. I bet she'll understand all of that just, you know, simp— you know, symbiotically just from being in that moment with you emotionally. That, that will be plugged into her for the rest of her life.

She'll never—

yeah, forget that even though she may not remember the experience directly, there'll be a correlation, you know, synaptically to what she sees around her, and she'll realize.

She'll know. I hope so. I mean, but I also think, like, I want her to fail. Like, a lot of times I ask her, like, what did you fail at today? What did you struggle with today? Yeah, because the more you struggle, the more you fail, you learn what not to do. Yeah, right. I think the problem— another problem with school is we learn in school not to fail. Yeah, don't get the answer wrong, right? Don't ask for help. No, you need to fail to figure out what not to do. Yeah. So, um, to an extent, like, I don't want her to go get her heart broken and all this stuff, like, I don't want that, but I want her to fail so that she can learn what it takes to be successful. Yeah, you know what I mean?

And I think with, with struggle there's, there's two outcomes. There's failing forward where you learn from the mistake, but there's also finding how that extra two steps gets you into some beautiful world that you never imagined because you push past. I, I remember the story of Chuck Yeager in, in, uh, the first aircraft that broke the sound barrier. I think he fell off a horse the day before, or the morning of the, this run. Two or three pilots had previously died because they got so close to the sand barrier. This plane was rattling like nobody's business, and they let off, and it basically pulled these things apart. He'd broken 3 or 4 ribs by falling off this horse that morning. He could barely climb into the cockpit comfortably, and he just knew that his life was probably done. And when he got— when he felt that shaking that he had heard from the other pilots, he just edged it forward that little bit more. The pop, and then just peace. Because he got through that, that moment of discomfort, and then it was just— broke the sound barrier. That was that calm moment.

That's profound. Uh, one of the best books I've read, and this was— this goes back to 2016 when I really started reading— it was, uh, Three Feet from Gold. Oh yeah, by Sharon Lecter. Read that book, everyone read that book. It's incredible and talks about So often we're digging, we're digging, we're digging for gold in our lives. We're really hammering away at something and we don't get anywhere when really we're right there. Yeah. So in the book it talks about someone digging for gold and they missed a fault line by 3 feet. They gave up. They had all these expensive things, drilling and all that stuff, but they didn't research how to drill for gold. Didn't take their time to study up on it. Yeah. So they're just digging in any random spot. They were 3 feet away. They sold all the equipment to somebody. That person studied up on how to do it, went back 3 feet away. Yeah.

Struck gold. I've heard that story.

It's amazing, isn't it? So such a good book. And that, that speaks to that is like that person was right there. Most people were right there before the sound barrier. And they gave up. Yeah, right. The other guy pushed through.

Yeah.

Sometimes it's all you got to do. You're right there. You're so much closer to success than you think. Ed Mylett talks about you're one, just one thing away. One more call, one more meeting, one more conversation, one more phone call. Yeah. The Power of One More. I think that's the name of his book.

That's right.

So an incredible book. Read that one. Read Three Feet from Gold. One of the best things I did with my life is started reading.

Yeah.

If I could go back to 18-year-old me, I'd say, dude, start reading a lot. Yeah, read everything. So now I've always got a good book in my ears. If I'm in the car, I'm listening to Audible. Before bed, I'm reading. I've got a book beside the bed. Get done with that book, get another one. Yeah. You know, it's so powerful. Yeah, feed your mind the right stuff.

I think that's a great way to end the show. Thank you so much, Devin. I appreciate you.

Thank you, man.

Incredible conversation. Absolutely. Thank you. Look at the links at the end of the show and we will, uh, you'll be able to follow Devin and Instagram, TikTok, YouTube. He's all over the place.

So Mr_Burr, B with 4 Rs, and then look out for his podcast which is called The Mr. Burr Show.

Fantastic. Thanks, Devin. Appreciate you.

See you guys.

What an incredible story. Follow the links to check out Devin's money school. The power of infinite banking is really the 8th wonder of the world. It's the continuous uninterrupted compounding of your money. From darkest moment to Devin in his finest. Follow the links. See you on the next edition of Birth to Net Worth.