In the last episode, we discussed alternative assets, and in this episode, we take a deep dive into the career of Chris Powers, the master of one specific alternative asset: real estate. Chris began his real estate career when he was just 17 years old and has spent the last 17 years building Fort Capital, a real estate firm in Fort Worth, Texas. Chris was a hungry 17-year-old, just showed up at college, bought his first house with no money down in 2004. By the time he left college, he had 12 houses. Fast forward to 2021, just this year, along with investors, they purchased $500 million of industrial real estate in Texas. Throughout the episode, we discuss Chris’s journey in real estate, investing, recruiting, and podcasting.We started the conversation by asking Chris who his heroes are. He shared the story of his father who went back to college to pursue medicine even after being a lawyer for 13 years. His dad taught him the valuable lessons that you only live one life and that money can only make you so happy.Chris bought his first house at 17 when he was starting college and got into real estate as a means to make money during his studies. He was driven by constantly waking up and feeling behind and wanting to do something. Before graduating, he bought more student housing, started a property management business, and started a leasing business. He graduated in 2008, during the economic collapse, and had no choice but to continue in real estate.From 2010 to 2015, Chris was doing a bit of everything related to real estate – he was building custom homes and spec homes, buying land, VC investing, and had a small team that he managed. Despite having some success, he realized he wasn’t compounding his business the way he wanted. Reading Good to Great by Jim Collins motivated him to narrow the focus of his business.Chris talks about his need to be able to recruit and the importance of having a mission. We also discuss how flywheels can propel us forward, and for Chris, his flywheel is based on his podcast, Twitter, real estate business, and investors that create a virtuous cycle of growth.Recently, Chris has transitioned out of being the CEO of Fort Capital, and he is learning how to be an owner. He is also focusing on his VC Funds and building Powers Capital, which he says will function like a family office but also will function like private equity. We wrap up the conversation discussing when enough is enough and measuring impact; Chris says he’s no longer in it for the money but rather to see what it is possible to accomplish during the one life he has. Links: Chris on Twitter: https://twitter.com/fortworthchrisThe Fort Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/4dLKPVTiXWmrFwd43iN2LZ Chris Powers & Pete Chambers Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/episode/2X8vKyUIQaIxV5Mr9J5KMvGood to Great by Jim Collins: https://amzn.to/3yJV9JcOwned and Operated Podcast w/ Chris Powers: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/21-chris-powers-building-%24600mm-commercial-real-estate/id1560999545?i=1000527344852Fort Ventures: https://www.fort-ventures.com/On Deck: https://beondeck.com/Token Economy - How the Web3 Reinvents the Internet by Shermin Voshmgir: https://amzn.to/3mpmHi7Additional Episodes If You Enjoyed: Mitchell Baldridge: Defeating Taxes, Crypto & Financial Planning Codie Sanchez: Drug Cartels, Vanguard, and Goldman Sachs Nick Huber: How to Build Leverage, Buy Businesses, and Go Viral on Twitter If you want to support the podcast, here are a few ways you can: >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanak: www.navalmanack.com/ >> Share the podcast with your friends and on social media >> Give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners >> Make a weekly, monthly, or one-time donation: https://app.omella.com/o/9Bufa >> Follow me on Twitter: @ericjorgenson>> Learn more and sign up for the “Building a Mountain of Levers” course and community: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage I appreciate your support! 

In this week’s episode, I talk with Phil Huber, the Chief Investment Officer at Savant Wealth Management and author of the new book The Allocator’s Edge. This episode does not include financial advice.* Rather, we talk about the advice Phil gives other people about their finances and the book he wrote about financial advice.We begin the episode with a discussion about financial advising and what goes into becoming a CFA (Chartered Financial Analyst) and a CFP (Certified Financial Planner). We also talk about how it’s important to find the right financial advisor as a person’s financial life becomes more complex. I ask Phil if any of his clients ever ask if he can YOLO them so hard with investing, and he discusses advisors’ business of growing and preserving wealth responsibly.Phil’s new book focuses on alternative investments, and he gave us a glimpse of what those investments are. He demonstrates how diversifying clients’ portfolios help manage risk. Phil explains catastrophe reinsurance, and we discuss the recent proliferation of alternative investing apps and platforms and how barriers are being broken down to previously inaccessible asset classes for average investors.  Any conversation involving alternative investments would in one way or another, end up with crypto. Phil talks about how advisors are trying to navigate crypto and the current difficulties of incorporating it into clients’ investment portfolios as well as possibilities for its inclusion in the future.We end the episode talking about the process of writing a book and how it differs from blogging. Phil wrote The Allocator’s Edge for himself ten years ago. By reading his book, Phil believes that investors can become more comfortable discussing and using alternative assets. Links: The Allocator’s Edge by Phil Huber - https://amzn.to/3m1tu1dSavant Wealth Management - https://savantwealth.com/ Phil Huber’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/bpsandpieces Additional Episodes If You Enjoyed: Mitchell Baldridge: Defeating Taxes, Crypto & Financial Planning Jason Hitchcock: Your Guide to Web3 (DeFi, NFTs, and The Metaverse) David Perell: Intellectual Openness & Mental Models for Success If you want to support the podcast, here are a few ways you can: >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanak: www.navalmanack.com/ >> Share the podcast with your friends and on social media >> Give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners >> Make a weekly, monthly, or one-time donation: https://app.omella.com/o/9Bufa >> Follow me on Twitter: @ericjorgenson>> Learn more and sign up for the “Building a Mountain of Levers” course and community: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage I appreciate your support!

Bram Kanstein has become a professional at fucking around on the internet. He has built dozens of products, three of which he successfully sold, and he previously spent time working for a VC and Product Hunt.We dive right into talking about Startup Stash, which is listed as the number one product on Product Hunt. Startup Stash is described as a curated directory of resources and tools for startups. Two years after launching and going viral, he sold the micro product for Ethereum. He also discusses the first company he sold, roadtoscale.com, and says that both products’ success came from delivering value to the right audience.Bram talks about how he discovered and fell in love with Product Hunt, which became the tool for his hobby of curating and discovering new startups. He loved Product Hunt so much that he joined the company a short few weeks after launching Startup Stash.Bram got involved crypto when he was still a student and learned through experience. He recounts a funny crypto story of creating an account in the game, Second Life just to buy some BTC. After day trading for a period around 2013, he sold his Bitcoin and forgot about crypto for a while. In 2017, he discovered Ethereum and got back into crypto. Recently, Bram launched an NFT collection based on a color alphabet.Currently, Bram is consulting a large company on innovation practices and validating new ideas. He is also teaching an online course, No Code MVP, and is working on his new idea, seedrounds.eu, which is aimed at improving deal flow for investors. The main TLDR he wants to share with everyone is, “fucking around the internet can pay off.” Links: Product Hunt - https://www.producthunt.com/Startup Stash - https://startupstash.com/Microacquire - https://microacquire.comLAUNCH Conference - https://launch.is/Road to Scale - https://roadtoscale.com/No Code MVP - https://nocodemvp.com/Seedrounds.eu - https://seedrounds.eu/Bram on Twitter - https://twitter.com/bramkAdditional Episodes If You Enjoyed: Kevin Espiritu: Bootstrapping Epic Gardening to 8 figures by mixing Media + D2C Biz models. Oh and Poker, Pink Pineapples, and Male Models Jason Hitchcock: Your Guide to Web3 (DeFi, NFTs, and The Metaverse) David Perell: Intellectual Openness & Mental Models for Success If you want to support the podcast, here are a few ways you can: >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanak: www.navalmanack.com/ >> Share the podcast with your friends and on social media >> Give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners >> Make a weekly, monthly, or one-time donation: https://app.omella.com/o/9Bufa >> Follow me on Twitter: @ericjorgenson>> Learn more and sign up for the “Building a Mountain of Levers” course and community: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage I appreciate your support! 

Chris says he isn’t the best poker player in the world, but he may be the most profitable. Pro poker player Chris Sparks is training for the highest-stakes tournament he has ever played in after a long sabbatical. He says he has already decided he is going to win, and now he is doing the necessary things to create that outcome.What is the dynamic amongst poker friends? Chris says “frenemies” – all bets are off when the cards are on the table. Chris only plays when he expects to make money, and elaborates on the role of recreational players, stating that if you can’t recognize the fish at the poker table, you are the fish.In the poker world, the meta skill of finding good games, of getting invited, and staying invited are critical. A good example is how Chris got invited to a famous comedian’s poker parties multiple times. Chris recounts these parties that feature full sets of dealers, cocktail waitresses, and masseuses--and it all ends when the comedian gets tired.We talk about Chris’s consulting agency, Forcing Function, travel, and living with one of the world’s best pianists. Currently, Chris is coming out of a sabbatical and is preparing to play his largest tournament to date, with the prize pool potentially reaching seven figures. For Chris, everything is a bet. But with any bet, the decision should be weighed with the things surrounding it and you go in with eyes wide open. LinksChris’ Website - https://www.chrissparks.io/Forcing Function - https://www.forcingfunction.com/Chris Spark’s essay on Poker: Play to Win: Meta-Skills in High Stakes PokerRounders Movie - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9r-K5dmt0Rc Molly’s Game movie - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vu4UPet8Nyc The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron - https://amzn.to/3ljtOIh Forcing Function Podcast - https://www.forcingfunction.com/podcastForcing Function Performance Library - https://www.forcingfunction.com/library Experiment without limits workbook - https://www.forcingfunction.com/workbook The Fifth Discipline Field Book by Peter Senge - https://amzn.to/3I5rrCU The Systems Bible by John Gall - https://amzn.to/3D3S9bj Additional Episodes If You Enjoyed: Kevin Espiritu: Bootstrapping Epic Gardening to 8 figures by mixing Media + D2C Biz models. Oh and Poker, Pink Pineapples, and Male Models Jason Hitchcock: Your Guide to Web3 (DeFi, NFTs, and The Metaverse) David Perell: Intellectual Openness & Mental Models for Success If you want to support the podcast, here are a few ways you can: >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanak: www.navalmanack.com/ >> Share the podcast with your friends and on social media >> Give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners >> Make a weekly, monthly, or one-time donation: https://app.omella.com/o/9Bufa >> Follow me on Twitter: @ericjorgenson>> Learn more and sign up for the “Building a Mountain of Levers” course and community: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage I appreciate your support! 

This week’s guest is my friend, Kevin Espiritu. Kevin is the founder of Epic Gardening, the world’s biggest gardening education platform. We became good friends over the internet--Kevin and I talked about the trend of parasocial relationships and how you can get to know someone despite having little to no in-person interaction.We talked about how Kevin transitioned from making a living out of playing poker, to building websites, to marketing and blogging, and finally, working full-time on Epic Gardening. This project went on to garner the biggest gardening audiences on YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram and has branched into direct-to-consumer business without any ad spend.Kevin relates his mistake in scaling the company revenue faster than he built the team, saying he likely left growth on the table. Leveraging people was a challenge at first. He says he thinks of himself more as a content creator and not really as a writer or YouTuber or podcaster, which eventually helped ease the process of trusting new team members to take on such responsibilities as he grew the company.Kevin is now raising PE money and making an acquisition as an independent entrepreneur. We’ve had such a wonderful conversation that goes beyond Epic Gardening and into fun stuff like how creators can implement web3 tools, Kevin's short career as a male model, pink pineapple piracy, and so much more. Additional ResourcesEpic Gardening - https://www.epicgardening.com/Epic Gardening on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/user/EpicGardeningEpic Gardening on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/epicgardeningEpic Gardening on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/epicgardening/Epic Gardening on Tik Tok - https://www.tiktok.com/@epicgardeningThe Epic Gardening Podcast - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/epic-gardening-daily-growing-tips-and-advice/id1221085548Scribe Media - https://scribemedia.com/Missouri Star Quilt Company - https://www.missouriquiltco.com/The Fish that Ate the Whale by Rich Cohen - https://www.amazon.com/Fish-That-Ate-Whale-Americas/dp/1250033314 Additional Episodes If You Enjoyed: Jason Hitchcock: Your Guide to Web3 (DeFi, NFTs, and The Metaverse) Nick Huber: How to Build Leverage, Buy Businesses, and Go Viral on Twitter If you want to support the podcast, here are a few ways you can: >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanak: www.navalmanack.com/ >> Share the podcast with your friends and on social media >> Give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners >> Make a weekly, monthly, or one-time donation: https://app.omella.com/o/9Bufa >> Follow me on Twitter: @ericjorgenson>> Follow @FirstsFamous on Twitter >> Learn more and sign up for the “Building a Mountain of Levers” course and community: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage I appreciate your support! 

This week’s guest is David Perell. David is a creator, a writer, and a teacher at his massively successful online writing course, called Write of Passage. The success of his course gave me inspiration for my own course, and gives me fundamental optimism about the future of education. David and I have been friends for years, so this is less of an interview and more of a one-sided hang-session, where I get the pleasure of drawing out new ideas and experiences from David that I haven’t heard before. This is… basically what it’s like to hang out with us in person, and I’ll let you decide if that’s a good thing or not :). David is a man of endless-energy. He is reference-rife and story-stacked. I always have a great time talking with David, and I welcome you to join the conversation. As always, additional resources to enrich your experience below: Topics Covered:  The upcoming Porter Robinson documentary that David is working on.  How David applied the ideas of Peter Thiel to… everything in life How to learn writing the fun way (less grammar more jammin)  Mental models for building successful products and companies What it means for something to “move” us The most interesting modern art form of today What deliberate consumption looks like   Additional Resources:  The Economy is Mind-Bogglingly Huge — Eric Jorgenson  Practice Analytically, Perform Intuitively - David Perell My Principles of Company Building - David Perell Peter Thiel's Religion - David Perell Saving the Liberal Arts - David Perell David's Essays Write of Passage Course David's Twitter David’s Newsletter Eric Jorgenson Newsletter Eric Jorgenson Twitter   Additional Episodes If You Enjoyed: Solocast: Metagames, Feedback Loops and Transcending The Muggle World Joe Hertler: Tapping Into Creative Genius & Pursuing Joy Through CreativityHuge thanks to Modern Stoa (modernstoa.co) for their help on creating and growing this very podcast you’re listening to now. If you need help with podcast growth or monetization, go to modernstoa.co or hit the founder up on Twitter (@consumersky) or Instagram (@iamaskyking).   If you want to support the podcast, here are a few ways you can: >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanak: www.navalmanack.com/ >> Share the podcast with your friends and on social media >> Give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners >> Make a weekly, monthly, or one-time donation: https://app.omella.com/o/9Bufa >> Follow me on Twitter: @ericjorgenson>> Follow @FirstsFamous on Twitter >> Learn more and sign up for the “Building a Mountain of Levers” course and community: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage I appreciate your support! 

Today, my guest is Dan Reecer. Dan joined the crypto world 3 years ago instead of going to get his MBA, and is now VP of Growth for Acala, the Defi Network launching soon on the Polkadot Blockchain Platform. Don’t worry, all of those words get explained in the podcast. In this conversation, I try to bring us all (myself included) from basics to applications of blockchain, and help us all see around the next few corners we’ll all go through together over the next decade. We talk about: Dan’s path to working in crypto, what Polkadot is, where it came from, why it’s different from Bitcoin and Ethereum, and how crypto will benefit people not already in the space.Additional resources to help enrich your experience below:(I encourage you to go play around with some of these tools and technologies. Things start to click when you actually use them and feel them work.)  Topics Covered:  What is Polkadot? Where Polkadot came from and why it’s different from Bitcoin and Ethereum What does a multi-chain future look like? Why do we need that? What problems does Polkadot solve? What is Acala?  How crypto will benefit normal people Dan’s path to working in Crypto   Additional Resources: The Infinite Machine book by Camilla Russo Dan Reecer’s Twitter Polkadot Twitter Acala Twitter Eric Jorgenson Newsletter Eric Jorgenson Twitter   Additional Episodes If You Enjoyed: Sky King: The Next Level of the Internet, Decentralization, and Becoming a Player in the Game of Life Jason Hitchcock: Your Guide to Web3 (DeFi, NFTs, and The Metaverse) Sean O’Connor: How Blockchain is Changing Society with Costless Transactions Simon Judd: How Index Coop is building Crypto Index products Huge thanks to Modern Stoa (modernstoa.co) for their help on creating and growing this very podcast you’re listening to now. If you need help with podcast growth or monetization, go to modernstoa.co or hit the founder up on Twitter (@consumersky) or Instagram (@iamaskyking).   If you want to support the podcast, here are a few ways you can: >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanak: www.navalmanack.com/ >> Share the podcast with your friends and on social media >> Give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners >> Make a weekly, monthly, or one-time donation: https://app.omella.com/o/9Bufa >> Follow me on Twitter: @ericjorgenson>> Follow @FirstsFamous on Twitter >> Learn more and sign up for the “Building a Mountain of Levers” course and community: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage I appreciate your support! 

Today my guest is Cliff Kuang, author of a fantastic book called User Friendly: How The Hidden Rules of Design are Reshaping The Way We Live, Work, and Play, which was called a "tour de force" by the New York Times. He was the Design editor of Fast Company, and Editor at Wired Magazine. From there he went on to work at Google as a Senior Staff Designer on an innovations team. Cliff is obsessive about the deepest challenges facing UX design today such as the metaphors that undergird what we do, the future of digital ecosystems, and the future experiences those ecosystems can unlock. Enjoy these topics and many more on this episode of Jorgenson’s Soundbox!Additional resources to help enrich your experience below:Topics Covered:  What Cliff is doing to change the entire landscape of user interface What a unicorn is within the design industry and why they’re a dying breed The universal problem of design What is “good” design How metaphor and feedback are at the core of user interface How design is empathetic Why we are in the ever-present of user interface   Additional Resources: User Friendly Cliff’s Twitter Eric Jorgenson Newsletter Eric Jorgenson Twitter  Additional Episodes If You Enjoyed: Eric Jorgenson: Metagames, Feedback Loops and Transcending The Muggle World Sky King: The Next Level of the Internet, Decentralization, and Becoming a Player in the Game of Life  Huge thanks to Modern Stoa (modernstoa.co) for their help on creating and growing this very podcast you’re listening to now. If you need help with podcast growth or monetization, go to modernstoa.co or hit the founder up on Twitter (@consumersky) or Instagram (@iamaskyking).   If you want to support the podcast, here are a few ways you can: >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanak: www.navalmanack.com/ >> Share the podcast with your friends and on social media >> Give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners >> Make a weekly, monthly, or one-time donation: https://app.omella.com/o/9Bufa >> Follow me on Twitter: @ericjorgenson>> Follow @FirstsFamous on Twitter >> Learn more and sign up for the “Building a Mountain of Levers” course and community: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage I appreciate your support! 

Mitchell Baldridge is an accountant and financial planner who also identifies as a libertarian anarchist crypto-degenerate. We talk through the creation of his firm, everything financial planning entails, and how he flipped a Bored Ape NFT for $250k. A little something for everyone today! Mitchell can’t be everyone’s personal planner and accountant, (though he is mine and I’m very grateful for that!) but he offers expertise that can help anyone. Taxes are likely your single largest expense over your entire life, so it pays to understand them.Be sure to tweet or email me so I know what you think of the episode, and be well!Additional resources to help enrich your experience below: Topics Covered:  Crypto plays in the public markets Wealth-building and preservation strategies 101 resources for people who want to self-educate on financial planning and taxes How web3 could affect accounting and tax over a 20-year time horizon? Mitchell’s business specifically What is the path and what do you learn to become a CFP and accountant When should someone start working with a CFP or accountant? How do you know if you have a good accountant? A good financial planner?  Additional Resources: Mitchell Twitter  Eric Jorgenson Newsletter Eric Jorgenson Twitter   Additional Episodes If You Enjoyed: Eric Jorgenson: Metagames, Feedback Loops and Transcending The Muggle World Sky King: The Next Level of the Internet, Decentralization, and Becoming a Player in the Game of Life  Huge thanks to Modern Stoa (modernstoa.co) for their help on creating and growing this very podcast you’re listening to now. If you need help with podcast growth or monetization, go to modernstoa.co or hit the founder up on Twitter (@consumersky) or Instagram (@iamaskyking).   If you want to support the podcast, here are a few ways you can: >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanak: www.navalmanack.com/ >> Share the podcast with your friends and on social media >> Give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners >> Make a weekly, monthly, or one-time donation: https://app.omella.com/o/9Bufa >> Follow me on Twitter: @ericjorgenson>> Follow @FirstsFamous on Twitter >> Learn more and sign up for the “Building a Mountain of Levers” course and community: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage I appreciate your support! 

Just me and you today, dear listener -- and I’m going to talk through some ideas that have been fascinating me recently, weaving together authors like Rory Sutherland, Eliezer Yudkowsky, and Nassim Taleb. As I reviewed my highlights from books, blogs and articles that I’ve been collecting over the past 10 years the main ideas that jumped out at me are playing the metagame and feedback loops. Both of these are ways to transcend the muggle world and start playing a different game. I hope you enjoy this format -- if you love it (or hate it, actually), please tweet or email me so I know whether to ever do this again. It’s all part of the sandbox experience! Additional resources to help enrich your experience below:Topics Covered:  What are Metagames How Metagames change the game and allow you to dominate What are feedback loops Why we accept false barriers to cushion our egos Places to intervene in a system The power of transcending paradigms How a system can be destroyed by ignoring feedback How to expand your theoretical fish tank  Favorite Quotes:“In any system where there are norms, there are strengths and weaknesses to those norms. If you follow the norms of the system, the results you get are likely to be the norm. When you play a different game, a metagame, you have the opportunity to outperform.” -fs.blog“Play the metagame in your domain too, whether you’re head of an organization or just starting out. Blowout the walls of your fish tank and transcend paradigms.” - Eric Jorgenson“False barriers are accepted because they are the path of least resistance for the ego” -Eric Jorgenson  Additional Resources: Alchemy Rory Sutherland Moneyball Michael Lewis Inadequate Equilibria Eliezer Yudkowsky Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life Nassim Nicholas Taleb Systemantics. The Systems Bible John Gall and D.H. Gall User Friendly Cliff Kuang Structures J. E. Gordon Mike Barton Runs England’s Best Police Force. What Sets Him Apart? Readwise Eric Jorgenson Newsletter Eric Jorgenson Leverage Course   Additional Episodes If You Enjoyed: Codie Sanchez: Learning Leverage From Drug Cartels, Vanguard, And Goldman Sachs Sky King: The Next Level of the Internet, Decentralization, and Becoming a Player in the Game of Life  Huge thanks to Modern Stoa (modernstoa.co) for their help on creating and growing this very podcast you’re listening to now. If you need help with podcast growth or monetization, go to modernstoa.co or hit the founder up on Twitter (@consumersky) or Instagram (@iamaskyking).   If you want to support the podcast, here are a few ways you can: >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanak: www.navalmanack.com/ >> Share the podcast with your friends and on social media >> Give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners >> Make a weekly, monthly, or one-time donation: https://app.omella.com/o/9Bufa >> Follow me on Twitter: @ericjorgenson>> Follow @FirstsFamous on Twitter >> Learn more and sign up for the “Building a Mountain of Levers” course and community: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage I appreciate your support!