Wealth Formula by Buck Joffrey

When you invest in real estate, you’re not buying what it is today—you’re buying what it will become a few years from now.  That’s especially true in multifamily, which, despite all the noise, remains one of the most compelling long-term plays out there.  Unlike stocks, you don’t get a live ticker reminding you every five seconds what your property is “worth.” And that’s a good thing. Real estate moves slowly, and that patience rewards people who can see the story before it unfolds. The national headlines are confusing right now—depending on who you read, the sky is either falling or it’s never been brighter. The truth, as usual, is somewhere in between.  Mortgage rates are still above six percent, affordability is strained, and national price growth has flattened. But beneath the surface, there’s an entirely different story playing out—one that favors multifamily investors who understand that real estate is always, always, about location. Some markets are clearly soft. A few urban centers built too much too fast, and it’s showing up in higher vacancy and flattened rents. But other regions—think the Carolinas, Texas, parts of Florida—continue to thrive because people are still moving there in droves. Jobs, climate, taxes, and lifestyle continue to pull migration south and inland, and those people need somewhere to live.  When you combine growing populations with a shrinking construction pipeline—new multifamily starts are down roughly 40% from their 2023 peak—you’re setting the stage for tightening supply and rent growth in the right markets over the next few years. That’s the part that separates pros from spectators. Anyone can read a national report and call it a trend. But the investors who win are the ones who know their markets intimately—who’s building what, where the jobs are moving, and how local policies are shaping demand. In that sense, real estate offers the only kind of “insider trading” that’s perfectly legal. The better you know the ground, the better your odds. For passive investors, that means something simple but crucial: partner with operators who live and breathe their markets. You want people who are plugged in at the street level, not just reading spreadsheets. Because in multifamily, the difference between a mediocre investment and a great one can be a single zip code. Real estate, especially multifamily, rewards patience, perspective, and proximity. You can’t control interest rates or the national narrative, but you can choose where—and with whom—you invest. And if history is any guide, those who make smart, localized bets while everyone else is sitting on the sidelines tend to be the ones who look like geniuses a few years down the road. This week on the Wealth Formula Podcast, I talk with a former professor and renowned real estate analyst who’s been studying these patterns for decades. We break down which markets are setting up for real opportunity, where caution is warranted, and what the next chapter of multifamily investing really looks like.

A few years back, I bought some very expensive sports coats. I wore them at first and enjoyed them. But over time, they kind of lost their luster.  As I have found often to be the case in my life, I don’t tend to care that much about fancy stuff—fancy jackets, fancy shoes. My true self regresses to a fairly simple jeans and flannel circa 1992 style—not expensive.  Realizing that these fancy clothes were just rotting in my closet, I recently sold them on a well-known second-hand site with only designer stuff. And I was shocked when I realized I was only getting 10 cents on the dollar for what I paid!  But then again, I guess I shouldn’t have been. Buying new fancy clothes has an extremely low likelihood of being a good investment. It reminded me of my good friend in town here who’s made millions of dollars in his life. He only buys nice stuff. But he almost never buys new things. The furniture in his house is incredible. Hundreds of thousands of dollars of mid-century modern gems. And he buys vintage cars rather than new supercars off the lot. He also has a 7-figure collection of rare watches. It's all really nice stuff.  The difference between what he is doing and what I did with those clothes is that he was investing while I was spending. While he’s bought millions of dollars of cars and watches, he’s always made money with them because he has focused on their future value.  Maybe I’m a bit dense, but I never thought about stuff this way before meeting him. And I still have to remind myself of this paradigm. It’s a different way to look at luxury and one that is certainly smarter when it comes to your pocketbook.  My guest on today’s Wealth Formula Podcast teaches people how to live this kind of lifestyle with cars and watches. I’ve interviewed him before, and I’m doing so again because so many of you have engaged in this way of buying nice stuff that I get regular requests to have him back on the show.  Transcript Disclaimer: This transcript was generated by AI and may not be 100% accurate. If you notice any errors or corrections, please email us at phil@wealthformula.com.  So it's a recipe for a very good business that allows an asset that's increasing in value, scarce in supply, and that's continuously increasing in demand because more and more people are getting richer historically, every single year for the last couple years. Welcome everybody. This is Buck Joffrey with the Wealth Formula Podcast. Coming to you from Montecito, California. Uh, before we begin, just a reminder, there's a website associated with this podcast, it's wealth formula.com. One of the things to really, um. Consider doing their, uh, as soon as possible in this fourth quarter is to join the accredited Investor club, the AKA Investor Club. You can do that@wealthfarmmail.com. Uh, there is a lot of, uh, there's a lot of things going on in there right now in terms of private deal flow, particularly focused. On tax mitigation, um, and alternatives and real estate and stuff like that. Um, so make sure you check it out, uh, especially if you're looking at, you know, potentially doing something that you invest in and saves you some tax dollars as well. Go to wealth formula.com now. Um, today we're gonna talk, uh, about a topic that I've talked about before a few years back. Lemme just give you this example. I bought some very expensive sports goats and I wore them, uh, at first I wore them a lot. But over time they kind of lost their luster. I found often to be the case in my life if I don't tend to care that much about fancy stuff, even though I kind of feel like I want to fancy jackets, fancy shoes, uh, I tend to regress to my, uh, 1992, uh, circa 1992 style, which is like, you know, jeans and maybe a flannel or t-shirt or whatever, but. Point is it's not expensive. So realizing that these fancy clothes were just rotting in my closet, I recently thought, well, gosh, maybe I could make some money off these and sell 'em. So I sold them on a well-known secondhand site with, uh, that only has designer stuff on it. And, and I ended up only getting about 10 cents on the dollar for what I paid. Now these things were in like perfect condition and all that, and that was super designer stuff, whatever. But. I was shocked, right? But maybe I shouldn't have been and probably I shouldn't have been because buying new fancy clothes has an extremely low likelihood of being a good investment. It reminded me though, of my good friend that I've talked about before here in town who's made millions of dollars in his life, right? He has a lot of money. But the thing is that, you know, throughout, uh, this journey, he's only really ever bought nice stuff. I mean, and the other thing is he almost never buys new things. So, um, for example, furniture in his house, incredible. He's a design guy. He. He's got hundreds of thousands of probably even millions of dollars worth of mid-century modern gems in his home. Um, and he buys vintage cars, uh, rather than a new supercar, supercars to, you know, get that sort of thrill of having the, the fancy cars. And, and he also has a seven figure collection of rare watches. You know, he is got a bunch of these, I didn't even know anything about these watches. Um, but he knows everything about him and. Uh, and he's got a lot of it, lot, he's got a lot of, a lot of money invested in that stuff. Uh, now what's the difference between what he's doing and what I did with those clothes? Well, he was actually investing while I was spending, you know, he's, he's bought millions of dollars of cars and watches, but he's always made money with them because he's focused on their future value as well. So anyway, maybe I'm a little bit dense, but. I never thought about stuff this way before meeting him. And uh, and I still have to remind myself of the paradigm that that sort of paradigm, uh, it's just a different way to look at luxury and one that is certainly smarter when it comes to, you know, your pocketbook. Anyway, um, that brings me to today's guest on Wealth Formula podcast and he basically teaches people how to. Live the lifestyle, you know, in particular with cars and watches. Uh, but again, do kind of what my friend's doing, which is you're not actually going to lose money on this. You're going to make money or at least break even, or whatever, and you're going to be able to have a bunch of really nice stuff. Um, I've had 'em on the show before. Um, and, uh, I've gotten requests since then to have 'em on again, uh, with people who've actually taken his program. So I think you'll find it interesting and we'll have that interview right after these messages. Wealth formula banking is an ingenious concept powered by whole life insurance, but instead of acting just as a safety net, the strategy supercharges your investments. First, you create a personal financial reservoir that grows at a compounding interest rate much higher than any bank savings account. As your money accumulates, you borrow from your own. Bank to invest in other cash flowing investments. Here's the key. Even though you've borrowed money at a simple interest rate, your insurance company keeps paying you compound interest on that money even though you've borrowed it. At result, you make money in two places at the same time. That's why your investments get supercharged. This isn't a new technique. It's a refined strategy used by some of the wealthiest families in history, and it uses century old rock solid insurance companies as its backbone. Turbocharge your investments. Visit Wealth formula banking.com. Again, that's wealth formula banking.com. Welcome back to the show everyone. Today I am joined by PJ Ghadimi. He's an entrepreneur and investor who's built a career around challenging the way we think about wealth. Really, he's a creator of what he calls the Wealth Transfer Methodology using, uh, luxury assets like exotic cars and watch watches, not just for lifestyle, but his investments. Uh, he's helped thousands of people, uh, think differently about alternative assets and, and the way. Uh, that, you know, you can potentially invest in this thing. And I was just telling, uh, PJ F line here that he is constantly being recommended by people in our audience. So wanted to get him back on the show. Pj, thanks for coming back on, man. Yeah, it's been a while. Good to, uh, be talking again. Yeah. Um, okay, well let's, let's kind of do big picture here. I mean, you talk about wealth transfer instead of wealth creation. Break that down. What does that mean? Like what's your kind of big philosophy that you're, you're after here? So, so we've been trained as human beings to think of luxuries. As depreciating liabilities. So as expenditures, right? Our whole lives we've been told you don't spend money on these things. They're useless and they're, they're, you know, they're gonna depreciate and be worth zero or they're gonna be high maintenance cost type things. And why would you do that? You could invest in real estate instead and blah, blah, blah. So, you know, there's been this culture for the last 20 years that has prevented people from basically having greater experiences. With these things like cars or, or watches or even real estate. In many cases we're told to buy what we need in, in homes, not extravagant, you know, insane homes, et cetera. But yet, you know, over the last, uh, I've been teaching this for about 20 years, but it was very in its infancy stages back then. But, you know, over the last 10 years, we've seen a significant shift in how consumers spend. What they spend on, in, in all of these industries, cars, watches, real estate have favored financially. The extravagance, you know, like the, the world's best bags, like urmas, handbags, uh, bring back 200% ROI versus coach bags bring back 10 cents on the dollar. So, so you have significantly, you,

Frank Gallinelli, founder of RealData and a seasoned real estate educator, dives into the nuts and bolts of identifying solid real estate deals. He emphasizes the danger of ignoring expenses and relying on past trends in uncertain markets. With a focus on analyzing market fundamentals over a property’s structure, Frank shares insights on essential metrics like cash flow and IRR. He advises investors to prepare for surprises with stress tests and clearly define their investment goals before diving in.

Buck Joffrey chats with Robert Wood, a seasoned tax attorney and managing partner at Wood LLP, who specializes in tax strategies for high-income individuals. They dive into the intriguing short-term rental loophole, which allows depreciation losses to offset W-2 income—an essential tactic for high earners. Robert also discusses tax reduction strategies, the ins and outs of qualified small business stock, and how to navigate capital gains taxes. Plus, he highlights the importance of proper CPA guidance to maximize these strategies!

Rich Ryan, an experienced Bitcoin engineer, dives into the intricacies of Bitcoin in this discussion. He emphasizes the need for a long-term commitment to Bitcoin and explains why it lacks native yield compared to other cryptocurrencies. Rich introduces Core, a self-custodial layer that allows Bitcoin holders to earn yield while maintaining custody. He discusses the potential risks, current institutional interest, and shares bullish price predictions, asserting that Bitcoin could reach $500,000 within five years.

Explore the intriguing concept of Wealth Formula Banking, which transforms traditional saving into a powerful investment strategy. Discover how it counters the pitfalls of low-interest checking accounts by utilizing overfunded cash value life insurance to earn a steady 5-6% growth. Learn how borrowing against this policy allows your funds to keep compounding, and why it outperforms HELOCs. With tax advantages, liquidity, and asset protection, this approach promises amplified profits. Buck also shares compelling examples demonstrating significant gains.

Most people picture investing as a game of chess. Everything is visible on the board, the rules are clear, and if you’re sharp enough, you can see ten moves ahead. But markets don’t work like that. They shift in real time—rates change, policies flip, black swan events crash the party. That’s why I think investing looks a lot more like poker. In poker, you never know all the cards. You play with incomplete information, and even the best players lose hands. What separates them isn’t luck—it’s process. Over time, making slightly better decisions than everyone else compounds into big wins. That’s the same discipline great investors use. They don’t wait for certainty—it never comes. They weigh probabilities, manage risk, and swing hard when the odds line up. Risk isn’t the enemy. Fold every hand and you’ll bleed out. To win, you’ve got to put chips in the pot—wisely. Wealthy investors do the same. They protect the downside, but when they see an asymmetric bet—small risk, huge upside—they lean in. That’s what early Bitcoin adopters did. That’s what smart money did in real estate after 2008. And just like poker, investing is about knowing when to quit. Ego and sunk costs can trap you in bad hands, but the pros know when to fold and move their chips to a better table. In the end, both games reward patience, discipline, and emotional control. You don’t need to win every hand. You just need to stay in the game long enough for compounding to do its work. The amateurs play for excitement. The pros play for longevity. That’s the mindset you need as an investor and the reason I interviewed a former professional poker player on this week's Wealth Formula Podcast! Transcript Disclaimer: This transcript was generated by AI and may not be 100% accurate. If you notice any errors or corrections, please email us at phil@wealthformula.com.   One of the things that we feel like when we decide to make a bet on a thesis and we're thinking about, well, wait, what, what if it's like this? Or what if it's like this or whatever, is that we, we do have this sense that we get caught in those decisions, right? That we start something and that, uh, it's very hard for us to get out of that position. Welcome everybody. This is Buck Joffrey with the Wealth Formula Podcast. Coming to you from Montecito, California. Before we begin today, I wanna remind you that there is a website associated with this podcast called wealth formula.com. Lots of resources there, including the ability to sign up for our accredited investor club. Now, of course, that is a, uh, also known as a investor club and, um, basically you sign up there. And, uh, you get onboarded and you get an opportunity to see private deal flow that you will not see anywhere else. So go check that out. Wealth formula.com. Topic of today's show's a little different. Um, it's, uh, a little bit more, uh, about the cognitive side of. Of, uh, investing. So, you know, most people picture investing as sort of a game of chess, right? Everything is visible on the board. The rules are clear, and if you're sharp enough, you can see 10 moves ahead. But in reality, the markets don't really work like that. They shift in real time. You know, you got rate changes, policy flips, black swan events, all these things can crash to party. Uh, and that's why I think investing actually looks a lot more like poker and poker. You know, you never know all the cards you play with incomplete information. And guess what? Even the best players lose hand, you do lose in investing. That's something you have to understand. Now, over time, making slightly better decisions than everyone else compounds into big wins. And that's what makes a, you know, difference between like professional investors and people who lose money in the market. That's the same discipline. Great investors use. They don't wait for certainty because the reality is it never comes. They weigh probabilities, manage risk, and they swing hard when the odds line up, right? So the thing to understand is that risk isn't the enemy, right? In poker, if you fold every hand, you're gonna, you're gonna bleed out. You know, you've gotta have ships in the pot, you know, wisely. Of course. Wealthy investors do the same. They protect their downside, but when they see an asymmetric be a small risk, huge upside, they lean into it and you know. That's what, for example, we, we've talked about it before, but you know, people who, uh, you know, bought Bitcoin early and had conviction and stuff, like that's what they did. And that's what the smart money did in, in real estate after 2008. They knew that they had a reset point, and even though things looked dim and grim, but all of a sudden they saw rates coming down. Um, they saw quantitative easing. They knew that a huge amount of liquidity was coming into. Space and they killed it for the next, you know, decade and a half. I mean, similarly, right now, like I think, um, I've been saying before, I, I think rates are coming down because of the Trump takeover of the Fed, because of, uh, job market that's weakening because of ai, all these things. But you know, just like poker investing is about knowing when to quit as well. Ego sunk cost and. Trap you in bad hands. But the pros know, uh, when to fold, move their chips onto a better table, right? Uh, in the end, chess, you know, or poker, they, they both are gonna do one thing. They're gonna reward patient's discipline and emotional control and understand you don't need to win every hand. And if you do, you don't panic and stop playing. You just need to stay in the game long enough for compounding to do its work. Um, you know, the amateurs, they do it for excitement. The pros, they play for longevity and obviously investors were trying to make, uh, make some money. So that's the mindset you need to have as an investor. And the reason I interview a former professional poker player on this week's. Wealth Formula Podcast. Hope you enjoy it. We'll have that interview right after these messages. Wealth Formula banking is an ingenious concept powered by whole life insurance, but instead of acting just as a safety net, the strategy supercharges your investments. First, you create a personal financial reservoir that grows at a compounding interest rate. Much higher than any bank savings account. As your money accumulates, you borrow from your own bank to invest in other cash flowing investments. Here's the key. Even though you've borrowed money at a simple interest rate, your insurance company keeps paying. You compound interest on that money even though you've borrowed it. Net result, you make money in two places at the same time. That's why your investments get supercharged. This isn't a new technique. It's a refined strategy used by some of the wealthiest families in history, and it uses century old rock solid insurance companies as its backbone. Turbocharge your investments. Visit Wealth formula banking.com. Again, that's wealth formula banking.com. Welcome back to the show we went today. My guest on Wealth Formula podcast is Annie Duke. She's a world-class professional poker player, winning millions at the table by mastering strategy, risk and human behavior. Since retiring from poker, she's become one of the foremost experts on decision science. Uh, she's the bestselling author of Thinking and Bets and Quit, as she now advises investors, founders, and executives on how to make smarter decisions when the stakes are high and the information is imperfect. Annie, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. So you, um, uh, obvious a very interesting, uh, background. You went from a professional, uh. Poker champion to a decision strategist, essentially. So tell us, I mean, yeah, what parallels do you see between high stakes poker and the decisions, say every day investors face in in today's markets? Yeah, so first of all, I actually went from cognitive science to poker, back to cognitive science. Oh, okay. Well, a loopy loop. Um, okay, got it. All good. So here's actually the interesting thing. So, um. Particularly when you're thinking about things like investing, there's, part of economics is a field called game theory. And game theory is the study of decision making under uncertainty. Um, and the uncertainty derives for over time is the other thing. So, uh, so we can think about it as making decisions to invest limited resources, right, in situations where, uh, luck can affect the outcome. Um, and where, uh, you don't know all there is to be known and know, you know, very little in comparison to all there is to be known for most of the decisions that you're making. And then, and then the over time piece has to do with, um, for most types of decisions, and this is particularly true in, uh, investing. The decision we you make now could affect de de decisions to come. So you could think about like in negotiations, right? Like when I'm negotiating with someone, it's really different. If it's a one-off, it's the only time I'm ever gonna negotiate. Against them versus if it's gonna be a repeated negotiation. Right. Okay. So a guy named John von Norman, along with Oscar Morgan Stern, wrote a book long time ago called The Theory of Games, which was really kind of defining this as a field, um, and something that we ought to be thinking about and studying. He was actually the mentor of John Nash, very famous economist, schizophrenia, um, who was the subject of a beautiful mind. And John Nash's, um, uh, Nobel Laureate Nobel Prize was actually in game theory. That's what he was studying. Um, okay. So what does that all have to do with the question that you asked, which is what are the parallels with poker? Jon Van Neuman was actually thinking about game theory and trying to figure out sort of like the mathematic, how you would mathematically model this problem. He actually used poker as. That he,

If you look at the wealthiest people in the world, they almost always get there through business ownership or real estate. The only real exceptions are athletes and entertainers—and let’s be honest, that’s not a realistic path for most of us. We talk about real estate a lot here and through deal flow in our investor club. But today I want to focus more on business ownership. One way in is to start a business from scratch. I’ve done that a few times—sometimes it worked out really well, other times it was a total disaster. That’s the reality of startups. They require a certain wiring, an appetite for risk, and the ability to move forward without much of a safety net. It’s harder to do when you’re 52, have three kids heading to college and alimony to pay. Another option is to buy an existing business. The advantage here is that you’re stepping into something that has already worked, which gives you confidence in the viability of the business. But it’s not without risks. Some businesses depend heavily on key people or relationships that don’t transfer, and the ones that truly run themselves tend to be very expensive and often out of reach. The third option is franchising. It’s not risk-free either, but it does give you a roadmap. If you’re the type who can follow a proven system, your chances of success go way up. You’re not starting from scratch—you’re plugging into a model that’s already been tested and supported. For people who don’t necessarily have the renegade startup personality but want more than just a paycheck and index funds, franchising can be a great fit. We’ve talked about franchises before, but this week’s episode brings a fresh perspective from someone focusing on non-food franchises. I think you’ll find it really interesting. Transcript Disclaimer: This transcript was generated by AI and may not be 100% accurate. If you notice any errors or corrections, please email us at phil@wealthformula.com.  We've seen so many real estate investors saying, where's another tax advantaged alternative investment that I could participate in? More and more of them are migrating over to franchising. So that's been a huge trend I would say. Welcome everybody. This is Buck Joffrey with the Wealth Formula Podcast. Coming to you from Montecito, California. And, uh, before I begin, I wanna remind you that there is something called wealth formula.com. It is the home base of the Wealth Formula Podcast. So if you want to, uh, go check that out, check out the resources. One of the things you can do there is sign up for the, uh, credit investor club, AKA investor club. See, uh, opportunities gill flow that you might not otherwise see because they are private. As we get here later in the year, more and more opportunities particularly for, uh, potential tax mitigation, lots of real estate, uh, some other, uh, real asset funds that I think you may want to, you may wanna learn about. So go to wealth formula.com, sign up and um, get onboarded. This is a little building a little bit on, uh, last week, uh, when we talked about, you know, how the wealthiest people in the world. Typically, unless you're like an entertainer or a professional athlete or whatever, uh, you're typically going to get there through business ownership or real estate. Right? Of course, we talk about real estate here a lot and we have a lot of opportunities coming through on, um, on uh, investor club. But you know, today I wanna focus more on that whole business ownership concept because I think it's something that probably more people could be involved with. Um, you know, but if you do wanna be in business, so there are a few different options, right? So one is to start a business from scratch. I've done that a few times and I'll tell you sometimes it's worked out really, really well. And other times it was a total disaster. But that's a reality of startups. Um, they require certain. Wiring too. I mean an appetite for risk and the ability to kind of move forward without much, much of a safety net. By the way, speaking of safety net, it's much harder to do when you're 52 and I have three kids heading to college in alimony to pay, by the way, ask me how I know that. Anyway, another option if you're interested in a world of business, is to buy an existing business. The advantage here is that you're. Stepping into something that already has worked, which gives you confidence in the viability of that business, right? I mean, it's a little bit, uh, if something's been around for a few years, for 10 years, well that's a pretty good chance you could keep it going. But it's not without risk because some businesses depend heavily and key people or relationships, uh, relationships that might not transfer. And then there are, you know, businesses that can truly run themselves out there too. Those are great to buy. The only problem is they tend to be very, very expensive and out of the reach for people. So the third option, um, and I'm sure there are others too, but the third option I'm gonna talk about, again, we've talked about it before, it's franchising, right? It's not risk free either, but it does give you a roadmap, you know, if you're the type who can follow a proven system. Your chances of success go way up. Right. So, and this is actually an interesting thing 'cause I, I think about the types of people who listen to the show and a lot of, a lot of you are highly successful students. So a franchise is kind of a interesting way to look at, you know, business because then you're basically studying what other people have already done and you're mastering it and you're already really good at that. You're not starting from scratch, you're plugging into a model that's already. Been tested and supported. So, you know, for people who don't necessarily have that, you know, have the renegade startup personality, but wanna. Want more than just a paycheck in index funds, franchising can potentially be a really great fit. And again, like we talked about before, if you get into this world, I mean, there's people who own tons of franchises who end up becoming really rich. Um, just because, you know, they can sell like a bunch of them and, uh, you know, and stack 'em up and, and get 'em going. Uh, but again, we've talked about franchises before. Uh, I just wanted to make sure this is sort of, again, on your radar as an option. Uh, so this week's episode is kind of bringing a, a perspective from a, a guy who's an expert in non-food franchises, and we'll have that, uh, interview right after these messages. Wealth formula banking is an ingenious concept powered by whole life insurance, but instead of acting just as a safety net, the strategy supercharges your investments. First, you create a personal financial reservoir that grows at a compounding interest rate. Much higher than any bank savings account. As your money accumulates, you borrow from your own bank to invest in other cash flowing investments. Here's the key. Even though you've borrowed money at a simple interest rate, your insurance company keeps paying. You compound interest on that money even though you've borrowed it. Net result, you make money in two places at the same time. That's why your investments get supercharged. This isn't a new technique. It's a refined strategy used by some of the wealthiest families in history, and it uses century old rock solid insurance companies as its backbone. Turbocharge your investments. Visit Wealth formula banking.com. Again, that's wealth formula banking.com. Welcome back to the show, everyone. Today. My guest on Wealth Formula podcast is Jon Ostenson , uh, CEO of Fran Bridge Consulting, and one of the nation's, uh, top experts in non-food franchising. He's a former franchise president of Fortune 500 Executive, and now a bestselling author and consultant who helps investors build semi passive income through scalable businesses. Welcome to the show, Jon. Hey, buck, excited to be here. Yeah. And uh, uh, apparently Jon is a listener of the show too, so that's, uh, that's helpful. He kind of knows what we're we're about and what we talk about in the show, so that's, that's great. Um, Jon, uh, you've been a, I guess a Fortune 500 executive of franchise President, uh, and now you run your own consulting firm. Uh, how did that journey bring you to, uh, you know, focus specifically on non-food franchising? You know, buck, I like so many others, you know, when they hear the F word franchise, you know, immediately thought fast food. And uh, and I spent many years in the corporate world, had a great run, but franchising was not on my radar 'cause I didn't want anything to do with food. And uh, really it was when I had the opportunity about eight or nine years ago to step in as president of Shelf Genie franchise system that I realized, hey, there's a whole world of franchising outside of fast food. And um, you know, I really fell in love. With the franchise model through that experience and just saw how all these diverse backgrounds could come together under a shared system of support and become successful business owners. Long story short, ended up becoming a franchisee myself of a number of different brands, still am today. And, um, started my consulting practice about six years ago to help others get plugged in. And, and I'll start by saying, we've got nothing against the food guys. We, we need them. But, uh, in my humble belief, there's simply easier ways to make money. And I'm happy to go into the reasons why. Yeah, why don't, why don't you kind of tell us a little bit about that? I mean, I mean, just the differences and you talk specifically about sort of specializing this non, uh, food world. I mean, what. What's the big difference there? Yeah. You know what? You can do really well with food if you're in with one of the big brands. But, you know, oftentimes if you get in with a smaller one,

If there’s one thing that separates the truly wealthy from everyone else, it’s their relationship with risk. Not blind risk. I’m talking about conviction — the ability to see an opportunity before everyone else does, to lean into it while others are frozen, and to hold through the storm until the payoff is undeniable. The extreme example is Bitcoin. In 2012, when it was trading for less than the price of a cup of coffee, most people laughed it off as internet monopoly money. But a handful of people had conviction.  They understood the asymmetric nature of the bet — the downside was capped at the small amount they put in, while the upside was exponential. Those early adopters didn’t just make returns; many became billionaires. Of course, most people hadn’t even heard of Bitcoin in 2012, so that might not have even been an option for you. So let’s take another example that you almost certainly did live through. Real estate after the Great Recession in 2008 was radioactive. Nobody wanted to touch it. Yet those who bought when fear was at its peak ended up riding one of the longest real estate bull markets in U.S. history.  Data from the National Association of Realtors shows that home prices more than doubled from 2012 to 2022 in many markets. Imagine the rewards of being on the buy side in 2012. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I believe we are in a similar scenario with real estate right now as we head into a descending rate environment following a real estate bloodbath.  Properties are severely discounted, and values are almost certain to go up as rates fall. But you have to see the big picture and not be scared. That’s not easy to do when everyone else is.  Real estate moguls and business owners are the ones most likely to take their wealth to the next level. Real estate is accessible to you — and so is business ownership.  Look at the Forbes billionaire list and you’ll see a pattern: nearly 70% of the world’s wealthiest people are business founders or owners. They didn’t get rich clipping coupons from the S&P 500.  They got there by creating or buying businesses that became valuable, saleable assets. The risk was obvious: most startups fail. But the payoff for the ones that succeed dwarfs anything you’ll ever get in your brokerage account. Now, the reality is that most high-paid professionals never play in this arena. They’re comfortable and don’t want to rock the boat. Some call it the “golden handcuffs” — you make enough money to feel comfortable, but that same comfort prevents you from ever taking risk. And you know what? That’s totally fine. Just know that doing your 9-to-5 and investing into your 401(k) is not going to create life-changing money. If all you’re looking for is life-sustaining money, keep doing what you’re doing. But ask yourself this question: What’s the life you dream about? If it’s the life you already have, then congratulations. If not, are you on a trajectory that even makes it possible to get there? If not, you’ve got to change course. My guest this week on Wealth Formula Podcast has done a great deal of research on the wealthy and has written a book based on what he has learned. Transcript Disclaimer: This transcript was generated by AI and may not be 100% accurate. If you notice any errors or corrections, please email us at phil@wealthformula.com.  An s and p 500 index fund would've outperformed like, you know, 75% of active managers. These are people who, it's their job, they're paid and compensated to try and beat the market, and they can't. Welcome everybody. This is Buck Joffrey with the Wealth Formula Podcast, coming to you from Montecito, California. And, uh, before we begin today, wanna remind you. There is a website associated with this podcast. It's called wealth formula.com. Go check it out. There's lots of resources there for you, uh, including, uh, a chance to join our credit investor group. Our credit investor group is exactly what it sounds like. It's a investor club and uh, it's basically an opportunity to see deal flow where you might not otherwise see. I do think it's, uh, you know, uh, following, uh, Richard Duncan's, uh, podcast last week. I think it is something that you really ought to be thinking about. We, I mean, even, even Richard, who generally is pretty negative about, uh, the economy and, and that kind of thing really sees a big boom, uh, and sort of a takeover of the Trump, uh. Take over the Fed by the Trump administration. Forcing rates to go down. Descending rate environment means increasing asset prices. That's just what it is. And if the Trump administration does what it wants, you're gonna see rates going down, asset prices going up, liquidity going up, dollar going down. What that means is asset prices skyrocket. Dollar falls. I mean, listen, if you're not buying real estate, fine. I don't buy real estate here. If you're in our credit investor club, you know, we we're continuously, uh, going after these distressed assets. Um, and, uh, but they may not be your cup of tea. Maybe go buy something yourself, you know, buy some stocks or buy some, uh, buy your own, uh, real estate, uh, whatever, whatever works. But I do think that. Again, I'm not trying to give you financial advice. This is commentary. My commentary is this, is that I think the playbook that the Trump administration is trying to follow is pretty clear. Now it's possible they, they're unable to do it, but I doubt it. I mean, they're gonna fire their way to controlling the Fed and if they can fire their way to controlling the Fed, they can control the Fed interest rates and they can control the bond market through quantitative easing. So, anyway, just a reminder on that. I just feel like people need to wake up on this one. Okay. Let's talk about today's show. It's, you know, it's about, it's a little different. It's about wealth, right? So, um, I wanna talk about generally the idea of, you know, building substantial wealth and, and what does that even mean? Right? Well, I would just say this, it's the, it's life changing, right? So that's gonna be different for different people if you. Are going from, uh, you know, $50,000 a year job and all of a sudden you've got a million bucks. That's life changing, right? So, uh, if you make a million dollars a year and you know, all of a sudden you've got, uh, eight figures of wealth, um, that it, that can be life changing, right? Um, or going from, you know, eight to nine figures or whatever. These are life changing things. That's what I'm talking about. You know, if there's one thing. That separates those sort of truly wealthy from everyone else. It's a relationship with risk that is different. Now, I'm not talking about blind risk, I'm talking about conviction. The ability to see an opportunity before everyone else does, you know, to lean on it while others are frozen and to hold through the storm until the payoff is undeniable. Okay, so the extreme example. We've been talking a lot about Bitcoin lately, right? So in 2012, Bitcoin was, uh, trading for less than the price cup of coffee. And I think it's, uh, as of this, um, I'm recording this a little earlier than it's being released, but it's at about 117. I think Q4 is gonna be huge. So who knows? By the time, uh, by the time this comes out, it could be greater than 117,000. It could be a lot less, who knows? But anyway. Hell of a lot more than a cup of coffee. Let's just put it that way. Okay? But guess what? People laughed it off. They were laughing at this stuff. Even through 2017 when I first kind of got into this world myself in the bitcoin world, people were laughing. They thought it was a joke. They called it buffet, called it rat poison. Blah, rat, rat poison squared. It wasn't just even rat. But guess what? There was a bunch of people, not a bunch, but there were, there was handful of people who had crazy conviction, these Bitcoiners, right? And even, uh, you know, they started off, maybe they had a few hundred bucks or a few thousand bucks they put into it. The next thing you know, they saw that grow into like, you know, six figures. And then they still didn't sell. Then they saw it had their money go into the seven figures and they still didn't sell, and some of these folks even became billionaires. It's crazy. Crazy. What kind of conviction that takes. I mean, I don't think, man, I don't think I'd have that kind of conviction. If I saw, if I saw a hundred acts, I think I would kind of probably bail, to be honest. So maybe I'm, you know, I'm not wired to become a billionaire, so who knows? Um. Got many zeroes to go before I could, uh, call myself that Anyway, so, uh, of course, you know, most people and, and myself, I think maybe I heard about 2000 Bitcoin in 2012, but. I think I was mostly hearing Peter Schiff bash it or something like that. So then I completely went the other way. But you know, most people hadn't heard of it then. So it probably really wasn't realistic for that to, to use that as an example of conviction, because if you'd never even heard of something, then it's hard to have conviction about it. So let's take something that's, well, I know, I know pretty much all of you have recollection of, and that is a great recession of 2008. And guess what? Real estate was radioactive. In fact, I mean, kind of almost like now, right? Like where, you know, there was this bloodbath and all of a sudden nobody wanted to, you know, people were, people were all over it and then nobody wanted to touch it. Yet those, uh, who bought when the fear was at its peak. Ended up rioting one of the longest real estate bull markets in US history, which really only ended like, you know, 20 22, 20 23. But it, there was a crash. There was a big crash. Now, data from the National Association of Realtors show that home prices, uh,

Richard Duncan, an economist and author renowned for his insights on global financial systems, breaks down the current seismic shifts happening within the Federal Reserve under the Trump administration. He discusses how Trump’s influence could reshape monetary policy, promoting interest rate cuts and quantitative easing to flood the economy with capital. While this may boost asset prices and create perceived wealth, Duncan warns of rising inequality and potential risks to the dollar's value, painting a vivid picture of the financial landscape ahead.