Birth to Net Worth with Kirk Hortel - Episode 4

Good afternoon and welcome to Birth to Net Worth Episode four. Jesse, how have you been, dude?

I had eye surgery last week and it literally felt like my eyeballs were burning out of my sockets. So today, the fact that I can kind of somewhat see colors now, it's not just three days of darkness, man. We're doing all right.

Excellent. You can see plenty of gray. That's not color. So you should be able to see me. Okay, awesome. Well, we. We've got an another amazing guest. As you know, I know gentleman who is formerly a firefighter, first responder around Phoenix, great family man, great human being and enjoyer of steak dinners. Let me bring to the. Let me bring to the studio, Kirk Hotel. Kirk. Here he is. How you doing, Kirk?

Amazing. Thank you, guys.

Kirk, I thought, I thought you were.

Vegan, dude, My food is vegan.

I like it.

So if I eat a vegan, I'm vegan.

That seems legit.

That seems to work my logic. It's my truth. So.

So welcome to Birth to Net Worth. Kirk, thanks for joining us. You, you're an amazing human being. You've got a wealth of knowledge in many areas. And I know the way that Jesse and I met you was through real estate, through one of the communities that we're in. And although you're not necessarily doing a lot directly in real estate, you're having a huge impact in real estate and certainly the community. Catch us up to speed and tell us about, you know, your life, your upbringing, and, you know, how you got to where you are today.

Yeah. So as you can see my helmet there. I did five years with the Phoenix Fire Department. That was a period of amazingness. I left in July of 2021 after just over five years of service. And that was and still is the probably the fastest five years of my life. I mean, I got in and I got out, and it feels like I blinked. Amazing culture, Very, very good men and women, of course, and just learned a ton, learned a ton about myself. Learned how to be a problem solver, and I feel like I've always been that person. I grew up broken home, barely got through high school, and had a lot of soul searching to do out of high school, which ultimately led me to getting an emt, becoming a paramedic, and then becoming a fireman. So at the core of what a fireman does is he just solves a problem. So they're at the station, they hang out, they cook together, they lift together, train together, eat together, and then sporadically the tones go off. And so whether it's a newborn that's injured or a kid in a pool, or it's 3am and somebody drank too much and they're upside down on the freeway. We have to go help. So what was really cool about that was the fact that you didn't have a whole lot of time to sit around and analysis paralysis. You pretty much showed up, did a quick assessment, and then you got to work. And I've carried that into my personal life with my family, my daughters, my household, and then ultimately in my business. So my business is my business that I started off on understanding finance was life insurance. That black book right there, Becoming youg Own Banker by R. Nelson Nash, was the catalyst. I read that book and just my whole world got thrown upside down. Nelson lays a very amazing case for the average guy, household economy, to use insurance contracts to keep your family out of debt. And so I've always had an immense, I don't want to say a burden, but maybe a conviction. When I got married to really lead my wife. I come from a broken home. My grandfather killed his dad, like murder. I'm granted that guy or my great, great grandfather used to beat their mom. This is back in the day. And, you know, the sheriffs just pushed it under the rug and they knew he kind of got justice. So, you know, of course today my grandpa would be in prison, blah, blah, blah. But, you know, just a lot of issues in my family growing up. And so when I finally had a point of ownership in my life, I. I just said, I want to do everything I can to succeed in my family. And we'll have a lot of problems, I guarantee it. But I do not want money to be one of them. And so if there is a way to make money, earn money and grow money, I want to know the best way. And you guys, I don't have it all figured out. I think I have a pretty good system. But insurance contracts is what I started using. Started funding over cash value life insurance, using it personally. And then after a short period of time, probably two years, I had been sending so much business to my insurance agent. He just was like, dude, you get this. Like, how come you don't do this? And I'm like, no, I'm a fireman. I, you know, do this. And long story short, I ended up burying my best friend, who's my age, 30 years old at the time, beautiful wife, three kids, and he's the best man in my wedding. He's a fellow fireman. And he was gone like that melanoma spread through his body. And gone. And it was just one of those times in life, you guys, that it got really real, you know, the, the emotions of life. And we kind of, and thankfully most of the times we don't have those emotions. Things are good, we're moving along, we're progressing. But that period of my life was like the lowest I had been. And it just showed me that everything is temporal. You guys, me, our families, everything is going to go. So I got a new lens to operate from. And from that I just started thinking and one, I had the epiphany too of what the life insurance actually does for you. I've never looked at it from a death benefit perspective. I looked at it from a finance perspective. Cash flow, assets, my family, taking care of my kids, growing income, you know, us being in control of, of our pile of money, not giving that to an ira, not giving that to the city. I never contributed anything to the city. I always wanted my pool of money. So me and my family, so I can teach my kids, so I can show my wife and ultimately you guys, if I left like my best friend, we didn't have to ask anybody for help. Now it would have been nice, right, to ask friends at family for help. But I have set our family up to where I can solve that variable. And so fast Forward started an agency, learned it, started having, I have a team now and then, you know, we've got some more advanced skills using some charities that I know, you know, we have talked about. But you know, the overarching goal was always how can I take what I have, what I've been given, how can I steward that to my best ability, grow it, compound it and ultimately be super efficient? I'm an efficiency guy. As a fireman, you've only got so much physical capacity in your muscles that you want to be efficient. Like the other day I was running with my brother in law at the mountain and he gassed out really early. And I said, hey, right before you get to the hill, hyperventilate yourself, super oxygenate your legs and your body will start to kick out that lactic acid and the CO2. And he's like, wow, I never thought about that, blah, blah. So I always had to be efficient as a fireman, whether it was my tank of air on my back, you know, my capacity of my crew. If we, if we couldn't do it, we had to, you know, not be prideful and call for help. So I know I'm kind of all over the place, but I just want to set it up for People to understand who I am. I'm a problem solver. Um, I no longer. I'm a paramedic still, but I no longer am in the service. I serve a ton of firefighters still, me and my team, and obviously we work with successful real estate guys and people who are really wanting to be in control of their destiny and impact their family, so.

Fantastic. Well, that was a great, great overview. I appreciate that. Jesse, do you have any questions on that?

You know, it's interesting because I met Kirk. We met, I think maybe about a year ago, and Kirk has been gracious enough to spend a lot of his personal time with me, specifically talking about life insurance and the financial benefits that come from that. So it's been real interesting. That book that he mentioned, becoming your own banker, I read it as well, and it was life changing. It really opened up doors and really put things in perspective that I'd never even thought about before. And so before we were talking, before we. We got on air, we were kind of talking about just our story. You. You mentioned that you were reading an obituary this morning from a. Was it a World War II vet?

Vietnam.

Vietnam vet, that's right. And just everything that he had accomplished and. And experienced in that life, it was interesting. And you said, what? What? Actually, I don't want to. I don't want to butcher your words.

What.

How did you phrase that?

What.

What did you say in what regards? You were like. Something about his story. Like this guy has an amazing story or something along those lines. And it just got me thinking, like, Kirk, you do as well.

Yeah, his obituary.

Right, right. But his life story, though. His life story, the things that he's done and experienced. And it kind of gets. Got me thinking about how many people that I used to work with and that I used to surround myself with and spend my time with. What do their stories look like? As opposed to now that I've made this transition into real estate and we're having conversations like this and we're spending our time a little bit differently. You know, what is that the. The remainder of my. My book look like. As opposed to, you know, people who say, hey, don't. Don't spend your money like that. Don't go get life insurance. Don't go invest in real estate. That's too risky. You know, what. What do you say to that? I mean, you spent five years as a firefighter. I don't know anything about being a firefighter. I'm an Air Force veteran myself. But my point being is just that the people that I Used to surround myself with. Didn't think like that. When you started thinking about money a little bit differently, how was that transition in terms of you're still surrounding yourself with people who aren't thinking like that, and at the same time, you're trying to make this move forward?

Here's what I'll say to that, Jesse in. At some point, you just have to flat out stop caring what anybody thinks. I don't know. It's probably not sexy to say that, but, I mean, I don't want to say I suffered persecution, but firemen are very, very thick skin. And, hey, try to be known as the guy who sells life insurance. Here's what I'll tell you. I wrote a policy on a gentleman who's actually a real estate investor and a fireman, and his wife came to the station and she goes, oh, you're the life insurance guy. And some of the guys chuckled. And I've got thickest skin as anybody, and I. I don't care. Yeah, I know what I'm doing. I know who I'm impacting. And. But when she said that, I remember thinking, like, yeah, you're the life insurance guy. And I had this little thought that was like, one day I'm gonna hand her a check, and it's gonna be for the death of her husband. And that's the reality of the life insurance business. Get a check and you give it to the beneficiary. Within six months, gentlemen, he was on a surgery table for stage three cancer. Six months. And. And she didn't know it at the time she said that, obviously. But that was, you know, one of the things I did really early, Jesse, was I had clarity on what I'm doing, who I'm serving, and my vision of. Of ultimately where I'm going with my company and how I'm going to serve people and firemen, obviously, is so clear to me that I could just care less what people think. And so, you know, there's a quote, and it's kind of harsh, but it's very true. It says 90 or 3% of people think. No, what does it say? 90 or 3% of people think they think. 2% of people actually think. And the rest would rather die than think.

Wow.

And so, you know, if somebody you really admire who is really crushing business, leading their family, impacting their community, brings criticism to your plate, it may be worth listening to, maybe. But ultimately, think about who's critiquing you in the moment. And, you know, really, you know, one of the things the Bible Says is, don't cast your pearls among swine. And so, you know, I guess that's all I could really say on that, is develop a vision of where you're going to, where all the noise doesn't even matter, you know? And I beat my alarm clock, dude, because of my vision.

Yeah.

And I have, you know, passions that get me out of bed. And so I would just tell guys, if you're going through that one, hang out with cool guys like you guys to develop a vision that really gets you out of bed and something that at the end of 20, 30, 10 years, you'll be proud to accomplish. And, you guys, I don't feel like I even go to work. You know, I don't feel like I have a rigorous schedule. I'm busy. I'm helping guys. I'm up a lot. I do probably put 50 hours a week into my company. I don't know. But I love every minute of it, you know, that's all I would say, man, is you just level up and you just change. And here's the other thing. It's okay to let people go. It's out. If you have the same friends for 50 years.

You'Re probably the same person for 50 years.

Yeah. I mean, and I'm not saying that you can't scale past people and still be cordial and, hi, how you doing? But, you know, like anything, you know, I was just talking to a baseball player, and I said, the conversations in the farm league are not the same as in the mlb. It's a different level. It's a different league, and you just got to be okay with that. And people will pull at you as you succeed, as you start reading books.

Yeah.

As you start bettering and sharpening your sword and going to conferences. I'm not going drinking, boys. I'm going to. You know, I'm not watching smut on the tv. I'm actually just finishing this book on real estate or taxes. And so really just don't care what people think. That's probably the easiest answer to that.

How freeing is that? Like, when you. When you truly don't care about what other people think of you, how freeing, how dangerous do you become at that point?

And here's the reality. Everybody's busy. Jesse, Tristan, everybody's so busy with their own stuff.

Right? Right.

Even if they act like they care what you're doing and persecute, 10 minutes later, they're already done with you. So just don't give them validity, you know, Carry your own torch and why you're carrying that torch. And that why will get you past all the noise in the. In the road bumps and the speed bumps. So that's what I would just tell you. And. And you almost just got to let them go. Like. Like I don't. And. And I don't think of my past that much anymore, Jesse, as just a personal growth. I live in the present. I live in the future. I can't change anything about a year ago. Now we can reflect and we can think, well, what happened last time, let's not do that. But I came from a pretty crazy upbringing, amigo. And it does me better to dwell in the future where I'm going with my children, the rivers, I'm going to be fly fishing, my airplane, I'm going to be landing on remote rivers. That's when we're on the creative plane and that's when we start to put this world into actual reality for us so we can go and accomplish it.

Absolutely. Absolutely. I appreciate you saying that. A lot of people don't. They don't. I don't feel like most people probably understand exactly what you mean when you say it's so important to live in the present. Because when you're worried about the past or when you're worried about, well, I don't know how I'm going to pay rent or something next month or when that's consistently all you worrying about, that's taken up all of your mental energy. And it's not putting you in a state of being present. It's not putting you in a state of being able to go and solve problems like you were talking about earlier.

And I think that brings us to a great point of relationship mindset towards money. Most people live with that relationship of the survival relationship to money is getting that next paycheck or making this paycheck last till the next one, or close enough to last the next one, where we're talking about building legacy and building wealth and cash flow and using other vehicles to maintain it takes care of that survival relationship to money above that we're thriving and then we're not worried and stuck in that minutia of worrying what other people think that we might spend money on, whether it's the Burberry purse or whatever we might want to be buying the material things. Once we get past that survival relationship money, then the material things are less important. Yes. They're only things that are going to. You know, it's, I think, just trying to remember a quote or paraphrase the quote where somebody said it's all of these things where there is a perception of rarity or scarcity, like the purses, the watches, and they're all turned out to be material things. Money's basically infinite. We can make money by creating notes, we can create interest, we can do so many things with money. But it's these things that marketed to be scarcest or you know, scarce or limited course in limited edition, you know, there's only five of these or. And then you combine that with the, the instant gratification. It's a killer combination. It's killing people, it's killing the economy. But when you leverage debt in a positive way to manifest cash flow, that's where I think we're getting to say you don't need to give a crap what everyone else thinks because you're out of that survival energy and relationship with money. So maybe you can give us a bit of background on what your relationship to money was when you were younger where you change what caused you to change. And I think life insurance is one of those places. But I imagine there are some earlier changes that happen with your relationship to money which led you to find the insurance and how you look to avoid perpetrating or perpetuating that survival relationship with money with your children and breaking that cycle and creating a new thriving relationship with money that they can then take on generation after generation.

Yeah, no great. I think it makes perfect sense to give context of, of fundamental ideas. Okay. And so I remember thinking or knowing when it changed. There's really only two thought process when buying something that is really it. Like if we were all standing there to buy cars, we could really only buy it two ways. We're either going to go and trade our time and get dollars or francs or euros or yuan, whatever, and we're going to take that money and place it into whatever the want is. I don't care. Cars, purses, vacations. That's one way. That is a time for money purchase. The second way is I like that car, I like that watch, I like that vacation. What do I need to go and invest in to. To get the cash to where the investment pays for that thing. You guys. That is the ticket. Yeah. Do not give in to the instant. Yeah. In your time.

And I think that moves into. It's only the investment isn't just going to provide for that one vacation, but it's going to provide you one or more vacations every year from the fact that again, that's a perpetual income source.

So on a personal level, you know, I don't believe in letting the state train my children. My mentor said, hey, you never hand your kids over to the enemy. This is my belief, you guys, okay? So control your children. Spend as much time as you can in the first 10 years. Develop their thought, protect their heads, encourage them, love them, and you will withhold a lot of damage that'll be done to them. And so biblically, the I believe the Bible actually teaches that women are to guide houses when they're married and when they have children. And this is, you know, my belief backed up by scripture. And so my wife was a nurse, she was making about five grand a month. And we just said, hey, when the kid comes, we're done. Like, we gotta prepare for five grand a month to leave our household economy. And so my wheels were always turning. I was in, I was learning how to start a business. Entrepreneurship. I mean, as a fireman, you're not an entrepreneur. Now I could work, I have skill saws, I knew how to build, I knew how to fix things, remodel things of that nature. So I knew that was going to unfold in some way, shape or form. But I had just been diligent with money, you guys. I had been staying out of debt. I had been stacking cash, paying life insurance premium. You know, fast forward. I buy a house for 192 and I sold it for 570 within a four year window. Pretty sweet windfall. The whole time I'm backing up my life and I'm just like, oh, that's amazing. We can save our money and use it and insurance, we can put it into real estate, have control of the debt. So I wasn't having notes being called on me for hard money. I'm simply, I'm in control of the debt. You know, good exit strategy, good time, boom, sell it, big old pile of money, doing it again, moving, doing it again, investing in our business, hiring people to do things that I don't want to do. So you just, this is probably another really easy piece of advice that I will tell people. Whatever everybody is doing, I don't care if it's health, your marriage, your spirituality, life, everything that they teach you to do the food pyramid, do it all backwards or do the opposite and you'll be just fine. You will actually be really, really good. You'll be healthier, you'll live longer, you'll have more money. And so a lot of what we're talking about, you guys, is how do we undo bad things that once they get in here, you know, what makes somebody, you know, for 40 years pull the same lever at Ford, you know, and you guys, that has to happen, by the way. We need those people in society. Those are amazing people. And what's interesting about this book, it's called the Science of Getting Rich. I recommend it to everybody I work with. Yeah, I recommend to listen wattles or something.

Isn't it.

So 1906. And the vernacular is really interesting because back then they were battling the trust companies.

That's right.

Yeah. A trust can be a company. Yeah. So now it's corporations. It's just changed. The entity structures have changed. Now it's corporations. So. But what, what he says is there's a certain portion of people who are living bigger lifestyles and there's literally a portion of society that gets out of bed and says, how can I make this world better? How can I help? How can I contribute? Who can I serve? What problem can I fix? And then there's an even bigger portion of society that doesn't want to do that. They want to collect a check, they want to put their nose down. They want to live. And they talk about the only way society can advance is if people are willing to live bigger. And I just have personally decided to live bigger. You guys obviously decide to wake up and live bigger every day. And it's evident by if both of us or all three of us can look back six months from today and say, are we better, smarter, more productive and more helpful than six months ago?

Yeah.

Which we are. And so just imagine that magnified over 15 years.

Yeah.

And how many people we're going to impact. I mean, collectively, in different areas. And so you guys, a big part of what I do is for my children. And so generally how it works is families build up wealth. If they do, not very many do actually, but the ones that do, they build it up, but they don't know how to maintain it, they don't know how to grow it. They don't know how to use trusts, they don't know how to use charities, they don't know how to use life insurance. So they burn it all down and they distribute it to all the undisciplined kids. And what happens? Probate, family fights, horrible breaking families. That's if they built up money.

Yeah.

If they did, most people don't. But the ones that do, and it'll even be fewer than our generation, than our grandparents and our parents generation moving forward just because the way the economy structured. But then the next kids, they gotta fight, they gotta learn it all. Wealthy families do not live like that wealthy families ensure everybody in their household. So when there's a death, there's a million dollar windfall or more. Every like there's a pile of money. And anytime anybody in the family dies, we're talking millions and millions. When I die, you guys, around $30 million at this point is coming in. 30 mil.

Yeah.

All three of my little children have life insurance policies. My wife has a life insurance policy. My grandkids, my future kids will all have life insurance policies. I will build the family constitution and teach them how to stay out of chains. I will teach them how to grow money, how to hold title, how to live. And so all we're going to do, and what's interesting biblically, is it says that God is not a respecter of persons. David was amazing. He smoked Goliath with the stone and then cut his head off. And people talk about David versus Goliath and that guy we're talking thousands of years ago, still repeating the story. Well, what's our story going to be? If God's not a respecter of persons and he views me potentially in the same fashion as David, why am I not going to change it for my family? Why am I not going to grow it for my family? And guys, it's not my family. My collateral damage. Of the hundreds of firemen we're helping, we're changing their families. It's impacting thousands of people teaching real estate. So it's one of those deals where it's like, you know, you plant a seed for a tree and then you die. And you don't realize how much shade that is casting on the world. Same thing as we take ownership of our families, Live powerfully, really understand high level. And here's the best part, you guys, I didn't invent any of this. It's just out there, we know wealthy families do something a certain way. Go to Paradise Valley in D.C. ranch and Silverleaf in Arizona, and go click to see how they hold title to property not in their name. Well, then why do I. So sorry. I'm getting a little worked up. But don't reinvent the wheel. Quit caring about what people think. Take pride in your children. Train your children. Develop a family constitution of what's important for dad, what's important for dad. And after you go set up the structure to where your kids just run with it and they live a life. I was thinking the other day, I was running the mountain, and in my head I'm telling myself this. I am going to raise daughters so powerful to understand money, so well, to understand a life of freedom and travel and impact and charity that any boy that comes up to them and asks, asks for a hand in marriage, they will instantly kind of vet because once they're on a higher plane and understand life at a serious level, a young dumb boy is going to have a hard time coming in. Not to mention our trust documents won't allow for outside blood to ruin any of our wealth. But, you know, raise the standards for your children so they have high standards. I date my daughters, I take them on ice cream dates. I want them to know a man that, that there are. There, there is a man out there. And I'm not perfect gents, but I want them to know that there are good men out there that will serve them and protect them and help them and train them and, and be there for them. And, you know, that's one of my biggest desires. You got and you look, I don't care if a guy comes from money. I didn't come from money. All I care about is people have the ability to learn. That is it. I don't want my daughters to marry doctors or real estate professionals. I want them to marry men that can learn and not mentally cap off their heads. So most likely their husbands will have not had gone to university.

I love it. So fantastic.

Can you edit that out?

I don't think we need to, but yeah, well, that's, that's phenomenal. So it's funny you say about using trusts and charities. We talked a little bit about that. And you know, I think it's important for families to have a cause that they can stand behind as well. Because you're saying about, you know, protecting the wealth for the family but also making massive impact, whether it's you selling a business product, but also impacting people that don't have the ability and don't have the means to have some of those things, but to allow them to, you know, live, prepare for adulthood and prepare for their lives. Which is where, you know, we're going to create fund from this podcast to help parents understand that there are vehicles like life insurance, self directed, you know, IRAs and many other ways that we can educate the kids while they they're raised. Not only to start life insurance policies, self directed IRAs when they're young teens, so by the time they're older, the value is going to be massive in the child's life. They'll have a trust which is funded by these vehicles, but they can also invest in, whether it's funds or real estate, whatever they want. To do. But we're trying to create a vehicle to work with them so the parents and the kids can invest together in some of these vehicles, which will give the benefit of learning together about how to generate wealth and grow wealth. But also, when that child has their first job, they'll be able to write off, through depreciation, their tax for the first year that they might ever pay tax. And if they learn from that stage that, oh, I don't have to pay tax this year because I've done this, this and this, then year two, are they going to want to pay tax next year? I doubt it. So then.