Wealth Formula by Buck Joffrey

What if you were in a 747 jet airplane traveling 500 miles per hour. You could get to where you want to be pretty quickly. But what if you didn’t know where you wanted to end up? Well, then it wouldn’t do you much good to move at 500 miles per hour. In fact, depending on where you ultimately want to end up, it could end up making your journey take much longer than if you just walked directly there to start! The point is that it doesn’t really matter how much energy you have or how hard you work if you have no idea where exactly you want to end up. Now of course it is hard, especially when you are young, to pinpoint exactly where you want to end up. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t start making some goals for yourself early on. You can always go back to revise them if they don’t end up being as appealing later on or if you have goals that are even bigger. The point of having a goal is to engage your self conscience to autopilot you to a place that you can see in your mind’s eye. Let’s take, for example, the goal of making $1 million dollars per month. That’s a big goal for most people. If you set that as a goal you truly want to achieve, you would have to take a pretty good look at where you are in life today and make sure your trajectory makes it possible. And if it doesn’t, change course immediately! In other words, if you are working at a comfortable 9-5 job making $300K per year today, you are going to need a serious pivot plan to make over three times that amount every month. No matter how hard you work, that job is not going to get you to $1 million per month. On the other hand, what if you are already making $100K per month and your earnings are independent of your time? What if the only difference between $100K per month and $1 million per month is increasing the scale of what you do? In other words, if a unit transaction currently makes you $5K, is there a way to make that same unit transaction worth $50K without significantly increasing your time and effort? If so, stay the course. If not, abort and alter your plan. I know that it can be done. I’ve seen people add zeros to their income and net worth in just a few years over and over again. You just have to have a plan. It has to viable and you have to execute it. And…perhaps most importantly, you have to believe that you can do it! Henry Ford once said, “If you think you can do a thing or you think you can’t do a thing, you’re right.” Mindset is everything. If you think there is no way to get to $1 million per month, you won’t get there. The reason why is nothing esoteric. It’s quite simple. Think of everything that you have done in your life up to this point. At one point it started as an idea that you believed would become reality. In order to make anything real, you have to create that reality in your head first. If you do that, your subconscious will help guide you along the way. Of course this type of goal setting applies to much of life. It’s not just about money. It’s just about what you really want. Visualize it, believe it, and make a plan to get there. My guest on Wealth Formula Podcast this week, Rod Khleif, credits all of his life’s many successes to these basic concepts of visualization. And while it is easy to be cynical about this kind of stuff, I can tell you from personal experience that I have experienced this kind of manifestation myself and it’s hard to explain. But it works! As the end of the year approaches, it’s always a good idea to reflect a little bit and this week’s interview with Rod might just be what you need for a little holiday dreaming! Rod Khleif is an entrepreneur, real estate investor, multiple business owner, author, mentor, and community philanthropist who is passionate about business, life, success, and giving back. As one of the country’s top real estate trainers, Rod has personally owned and managed over 2,000 properties. Rod is Host of the Top-Ranked iTunes Real Estate Podcast which has been downloaded more than 8,000,000 times – “The Lifetime Cash Flow Through Real Estate Investing Podcast.” Rod is the author of “How to Create Lifetime Cash Flow Through Multifamily Properties” considered to be an essential “textbook” for aspiring multifamily investors. As an accomplished entrepreneur, Rod has built several successful multi-million dollar businesses. As a community philanthropist, Rod founded and directs The Tiny Hands Foundation, which has benefited more than 75,000 community children and families in need. Rod has combined his passion for real estate investing and business development coaching with his personal philosophy of goal setting, envisioning, and manifesting success to become one of America’s top real estate investment and business development trainers. Shownotes: Lessons after losing $50 million in 2008 Visualize your goal, believe it, and make a plan to get there Why should you fear regret more than you fear failure and humiliation? Happiness comes from progress and growth The Lifetime Cash Flow Through Real Estate Investing Podcast realestatewithrod.com

Wealth Formula does, in fact, have a mathematical formula behind it.  Wealth=Leverage(MassxVelocity) I believe the key to building your wealth is behind maximizing each one of these variables. Mass is simple. It’s how much money you invest. If you have more money to invest then you are going to create more wealth.  Leverage is critical. Despite what some popular personal finance gurus say, significant wealth creation is almost impossible without the judicious use of debt. It serves to amplify your returns. After all, growing your wealth at 5 percent per year is quaint but it isn’t going to make you rich.  Velocity might actually be the least understood and least appreciated variable of the Wealth Formula. Velocity is more complicated than a simple yield or cash on cash value although that’s part of it. Velocity is how quickly you get your money back in your pocket to redeploy into another opportunity. So, if you have money in one apartment building that refinances and you get your money out of the deal while maintaining your equity position, you can now recycle that same capital into another investment. Now you are invested in two assets at the same time using the same initial capital. Velocity is a function of time. If you can do the same work in half the time you are going to double your annualized returns. If you redeploy that capital into multiple opportunities you begin to see exponential growth of your wealth. While that might seem like a fairly simple concept, it’s not the way most businesses think. Even most value-add apartment syndicators seem blind to this concept. Every day that value is not created in a real estate project, it decreases the over-all return on investment. That’s the secret behind our Investor Club partners: Western Wealth Capital. It’s THE NEED FOR SPEED!!! If you have been part of our investor community or have come to one of our live events you have seen these concepts come to life and it’s truly remarkable! You see the math is quite easy. Once you know the variables it makes sense. The hard part is the execution and, in this regard, Western Wealth Capital is the Wealth Formula coming to life. To talk about this remarkable organization, this week’s podcast features an interview with David Steele, one of the principals and cofounders of Western Wealth Capital.  As always Dave is not only brilliant but entertaining. Don’t miss this episode! David is an entrepreneurial executive who has offered leading-edge investment opportunities to thousands of individual investors in both Canada and the United States. From 1997 to 2001, David was CEO of International Properties Group Ltd. (IPG), a TSX-listed real estate company that purchased apartment buildings and converted them to condominiums. While at IPG, David developed and operated a wealth management division, which helped thousands of individual investors acquire more than 85 projects and 7,000 properties throughout North America. Those investment properties continue to generate passive investment income today. David has been actively involved in the growth of the Entrepreneurs Organization (EO), a non-profit organization that now has over 7,500 members worldwide. From 1993 to 1994, David served as EO’s International President. David has a Bachelor of Commerce degree with a major in finance from the University of Calgary. Shownotes: The beginnings of Western Wealth Capital What is the secret behind Western Wealth Capital? How can you invest your money in two places at the same time? How the pandemic affected the multifamily housing market

Boring is good. Beware of shiny objects. When it comes to investing, those are the words that I generally live by. When I keep true to this wisdom, I don’t generally lose money. Now that doesn’t mean I have never lost money! Remember, before I became a boring domestic real estate guy, I was a flaming entrepreneur! I acted on every good and bad idea that I had.  I made millions of dollars with some of those startups while losing most of it with just a few bad decisions. It was exciting—but not all that profitable. I remember a few years back after losing a ton of money in a failed business expansion that my net worth was preserved only by the real estate I had purchased along the way. Luckily, I had a rule that I had to buy at least one apartment building every year while building my other businesses. Guess what survived? Guess what thrived? Yep…the boring stuff. Those apartment buildings I bought while I lived in Chicago saved me! And while not all real estate investments grow by 500 percent plus in just 3-4 years like mine did, you can pretty much count on most residential real estate to be fairly safe in competent hands. Boring stuff like real estate is a slow-burn for creating wealth. We can amplify that growth through velocity—we can invest in value-add projects that quickly refinance and recycle capital. However, it is highly unlikely that you will end up with “10 bagger” on any individual real estate project. To get a 1000 percent plus returns, you need to do something a little riskier like I did with those start-ups. But is it prudent to do so? After all, if you are making $500K or a $1 million per year, do you want that kind of risk? For most people, the answer is no. But, what if you want to go from being a person with a net worth of $3 million to $30 million? Well, if you really want to do that, you are going to need to take some risk—asymmetric risk. If you’ve got the money to do it, it might make sense to take that 5-10 percent of your net worth and shoot for the stars. If you lose it, you can afford it. But if it takes off, it could be life changing. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency speculation is certainly a good example of asymmetric risk. People who bought a couple of hundred dollars of bitcoin back when it first came out are worth hundreds of millions of dollars! That kind of crazy profit is extraordinarily rare and requires a huge amount of good fortune. However, more modest levels of asymmetric risk can potentially be systematized. That’s essentially what an angel investor fund does and that’s what we are going to talk about on this week’s episode of Wealth Formula Podcast. So…if you’re tired of all the boring stuff we do in Investor Club don’t miss this episode! Tom Wallace is the Managing Partner as well as investor and board member at Florida Funders as we are part of that change. As a 25 year veteran of angel investing, he has learned the hard way how challenging angel and early stage investing can be …vetting the deals, due diligence, checking out the entrepreneurs (so important), legal docs, and negotiating valuations. It can be daunting and easy to cut corners which can be fatal. Florida Funders does all this for the investor and allows you to invest as little as $5,000 or invest in a seed fund that really enables you to diversify your risk which is so important in this asset class. Shownotes: Angel Investing in technology. How much of one’s investment portfolio should be used on Angel Investing? Tom talks about the five D’s of Angel Investing What is the biggest mistake one can make in Angel Investing? Floridafunders.com

Estate planning is by far and away the most ignored topic amongst the high paid professionals with whom I talk to every day. First of all, it’s not a very sexy issue. Who likes talking about dying anyway? It’s kind of a buzz kill. But I got news for you…eventually you are going to die and you probably won’t get to pick when. Remember—I’m a doctor so I’m qualified to make this statement! The other hesitation many have when it comes to estate planning is that it often requires the concept of gifting your assets to a trust or to your children. When you are in your 40s or 50s you might think, “I’m not ready to give my stuff away. I want to have some fun!” A good friend of mine had that exact response when I brought up the issue to him recently. But here’s the thing. Gifting an asset to a trust DOES NOT mean giving up control. Remember the old dictum, “Own nothing, control everything.” That’s what good estate planning is all about. You really don’t need to change much of anything in your life while you are living. However, good estate planning will make a world of difference to your loved ones when you die.  Imagine for a second that you have amassed a net worth of $10 million and you suddenly pass away. If you didn’t do any estate planning, your kids aren’t going to see any of that money for a year or more as it goes through a process called probate. And to be clear, A WILL DOES NOT PREVENT PROBATE. Probate is the judicial process whereby a will is “proved” in a court of law. In California, that takes a minimum of two years! The good news is that avoiding probate is easy as establishing a living trust and funding that trust with all your assets. Now, if you are one of our typical accredited investors, a living trust may not be enough if you want to really protect your family’s wealth. Estate tax laws are rapidly changing and if you thought this was only a problem for $20 million plus families, you might be in for a rude awakening as new tax legislation is almost certain to come to fruition in the next several years with or without a Biden administration. Estate planning is an area that, regardless of its minimal sex appeal, must be addressed to preserve your wealth and to keep your family safe. You don’t want them dealing with this stuff at the same time they have to grieve your death. The good news is, again, you don’t have to do a lot to make adequate adjustments to your finances and it’s not very expensive. Just do it once and then you can go back to pretending you are immortal! How do you do it? Well, this week’s Wealth Formula Podcast will make it all very clear as I interview attorney Joe Longo. Your family will thank you for listening to this one! Joe began the LONGO LAW GROUP, LLP on the foundation of service of clients and results. He was influenced by his father, Dominic Longo, who founded Longo Toyota at a converted gas station with a 4 car inventory and eventually built it into a 22 acre facility housing the #1 selling car dealership in the world based on customer satisfaction. When most people are looking to hire a law firm its because they need something in the legal world accomplished. Its not to get overcharged and to have your attorney stop communicating with you. This firm’s philosophy is to provide the most vigorous representation, best service, ongoing communication, and at the most competitive rates. Joe has numerous Federal and State jury and bench trials under his belt, along with his sports practice that includes arbitrations, grievances, drug suspension hearings and appeals. Over the past two plus decades Joe’s practice has included Civil Litigation (business), Criminal (both State and Federal-Tax), Probate Litigation, Sports (MLB and NBA), Asset Protection, Trust and Estate planning. His clients have ranged from publically traded, international, corporations, professional athletes, professional sports franchises, leagues, individuals, to volunteer pro bono work for indigent clients. Along the way he has taught law at Los Angeles City College, Mission College, and Pasadena City College, and is currently an Adjunct Professor at Loyola Law School. He has sat as a Judge Pro Temp in the Los Angeles Court System. He has been a Panelist on many law panels including “USC Gould School of Law— Institute on Entertainment Law and Business”, “Loyola Sports Law Institute on Collective Bargaining & Individual Contract Negotiation In Professional Sports”, and “Negotiation For Lawyers—Lessons from Baseball Salary Arbitration Cases” Joe is also the President of Paragon Sports International, LLC (www.ParagonSportsInternational.com). Joe has attained an “AV” peer rating from Martindale Hubbell, the national directory of attorneys, indicating preeminent legal ability and the highest ethical standards. He is a member of the California Bar, the Beverly Hills Bar Association, the Los Angeles Bar Association, the Sports Lawyers Association, and The Wealth Counsel. He received his B.A. from Brown University in Rhode Island, where he was a starting Defensive Back on the Brown University Football Team in the mid 1980’s. He obtained his Law Degree from Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, CA. His charitable endeavors include sitting on the Board of Ability First. Shownotes: What is Probate? Why do you need a Living Trust? Joe talks about the advantages of having a Dynasty Trust. How do you find a good Wealth Planning Attorney?

It’s not what you make but what you get to keep. Think about that for a second. If you are a physician in California that makes $500K per year, do you really make $500K per year? No you don’t. With combined state and federal taxes, you make half of that. The Federal government and the State of California made the other half.  Believe me, I’ve been there. I spent the first year after residency as a W2 employee and it’s painful. I’ve illustrated how painful this is to my children by getting an ice cream cone then taking half of it myself and telling them I’m taxing them. They get the point. However, their first inclination is like many others—they try to get two scoops instead of one. They don’t ask the question, “Daddy, is there a way that I can pay less tax?”  It’s human nature to accept certain things in life. Even Benjamin Franklin famously said, “ …in this world, nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes” While as a physician I can tell you that we do not have a solution to the former, the latter is a problem with several potential solutions. Look at our current president. Well…I guess he did pay $750! The truth is that it is the right of every citizen to legally mitigate the amount of taxes they pay. I’ve heard the argument that it is unpatriotic to decrease your tax burden. However, understand that the tax code is written as a series of incentives. In other words, if you are paying less taxes, you are doing something that the government theoretically wants you to do. Anyway, if you are concerned that reducing your tax bill is unpatriotic, you probably don’t like Wealth Formula Podcast anyway so I won’t say much more about that. However, if you would like to seriously start to change your tax, my friend and CPA Tom Wheelright says there is only one way. You have to change your facts. And, if you want to change your facts, I can tell you with some level of certainty that there is almost always a way to do it. You just have to have the right advisors. Of course, Tom Wheelwright is my tax advisor and he is the best in the business. So, if you want to start keeping more of what you make, don’t miss this week’s episode as Tom and I focus on the concept of creating passive income. Tom Wheelwright, CPA is the visionary and best selling author behind multiple companies that specializing in wealth and tax strategy. Tom is also a leading expert and published author on partnerships and corporation tax strategies, a well-known platform speaker and a wealth education innovator. In Tom’s best selling book Tax-Free Wealth, Tom shows entrepreneurs and investors how to build massive amounts of wealth through practical and strategic ways to permanently reduce taxes. Shownotes: Changes to the PPP legislation How will the proposed tax legislation from the Biden camp affect real estate investors? Can real estate losses offset capital gains? Passive losses can only offset passive income. But what do you do if you don’t have any passive income? wealthability.com

We are now just a few weeks away from a presidential election. Ordinarily that is, in and of itself, a wildcard for the economy. People tend to freeze up in times of uncertainty. Factor in some kind of October surprise which would not surprise me, on-going COVID-19 fall-out and decreases in government support and who knows what happens next. If you are in our Accredited Investor Club, you have fortunately been shielded from having to worry about much. It turns out that preparing for a down cycle via hyper-focus on working class apartment buildings, self-storage facilities and other uncorrelated asset classes turned out to be the right move. Many of our properties continue to perform as well or better than pre-COVID levels. In reality, we are not seeing much distress at all in our space in the markets where we have chosen to buy. And, frankly, if we get through the next 4-5 months relatively unscathed, we may be seeing an even more expensive market than before as big money starts to see our space as safe-haven. I’m hopeful that scenario indeed happens in our niche. However, it is highly unlikely that many of the other real estate sub-classes will do well. Specifically, single family homes in middle-class markets may see some distress as mortgage mitigation efforts expire. Non-residential commercial real estate such as office and retail are likely to see big trouble as their government assistance expires and distress begins pushing prices downward. In that regard, we could see great buying opportunities in many real estate niches in which many of us have little exposure. That means opportunity. The whole real estate market is in flux and we need to continue watching it closely. While it may not seem that much is changing on the surface, guys like Jorge Newbery of AHP Servicing are seeing mortgage default rates as high as they have been in 8-9 years. To talk about this in more detail, I spoke to him a short time back and you will have a chance to listen to our conversation on this week’s Wealth Formula Podcast. Don’t miss it! Jorge Newbery is the Chairman and founder of American Homeowner Preservation, LLC, or “AHP.” Jorge was the President of Budget Real Estate Inc. from 1995 to 2008, where he brokered over 1,000 troubled Department of Housing and Urban Development and real estate owned properties and acquired, renovated and operated over 200 distressed multi-family, single-family and commercial properties. Prior to that, Jorge was the co-founder of Sunset Mortgage from 1992 to 1995. Shownotes: The challenges with the loan forbearance programs that are currently available. Why aren’t we seeing the expected number of mortgage payment defaults several months into this pandemic? What the advantages of doing note investing through a big fund ahpservicing.com

“Saying yes will get you to a million. Saying no will get you to $100 million.” That’s the advice I once got from a very successful centimillionaire friend of mine. And while, on the surface, it may seem like one of those things rich people say to sound profound, I assure you that the power of no is indeed real. As you may know, I have been a bit of a flaming entrepreneur since leaving surgical residency. I got the bug after reading a Kiyosaki book and from that point forward, I was like one of those kids who grow up repressed and tries to make up for it up by drinking too much in college. In other words, there was a period in my life where I chased too many shiny objects. I said yes to everything. It was fun until I realized it wasn’t particularly profitable to be so entrepreneurially promiscuous. In fact, in 2014, I gambled away two successful businesses that were making millions of dollars per year by over-leveraging myself and trying to grow too fast. It didn’t work and I lost millions in the process. That was my “come to Jesus” point where I realized that I had to get control of my desires. It was a fun ride, but I had to be more methodical going forward. And since then, I have trained myself to say no to pretty much every opportunity that comes my way. I only consider saying yes under very narrow circumstances. First, the opportunity has to be worth at least another million dollars per year in income for me. I’m not saying that it starts off that way, but it should be able to get there pretty quickly. The next criteria is that there is no significant over-head. Over-head crushed me when I tried to open up 5 surgical centers in 5 different states at the same time. I won’t make that mistake again. Finally, the new endeavor cannot put anything that I am currently doing in jeopardy. This is fairly broad but, for example, I won’t sacrifice ongoing cash flows from one business to support another for a prolonged period of time. In addition, I won’t get involved with anything that will require a disproportionate amount of time when considering financial return (or other kinds of fulfillment). Sounds pretty obvious right? Well, try telling that to the entrepreneur possessed. It’s not that easy. Whether you are an entrepreneur or an investor, you have to develop the ability to say no. Now, there is hazard on the opposite end of the spectrum as well. For example, I know guys who are very successful and they keep burying all of their money into the same business to grow it more and more. They aren’t taking any of that money and creating other sources of income. That puts them at a high risk of single point failure. So, the moral of the story is that while it’s probably best to lead with no, you should be open to saying yes once in a while for the right opportunity. You may be a highly successful individual who makes a ton of money through your income. What if you lost that job or were unable to continue to do it? What if there was a way for you to create significant income that was not considered W2 income and provided significant tax benefits? That’s where being a business owner has its biggest advantages. You can’t get fired and you will pay a lot less in taxes. However, starting a business is pretty darn risky and most fail. So, how can you mitigate that risk?  Well, one option is to consider getting involved with franchises. This is an area that I have considered for years but have never really explored. But after this week’s Wealth Formula Podcast interview with Franchise expert, Kim Daly, I am seriously considering it. I really enjoyed talking to Kim and I highly encourage you to listen to our discussion. It could change your life! Kim Daly is one of America’s top franchise consultants who has helped thousands of people explore franchise opportunities. Prior to becoming a franchise consultant, she successfully ran her own health & fitness based consulting firm and worked with Dr. Denis Waitley, Denise Austin, eDiets.com, Gold’s Gym and many other national health and wellness brands. She launched the first health and fitness marketplace at USATODAY.com called BeHealthyNow. She was a personal trainer in college and a Miss America contestant. She graduated Summa Cum Laude with a degree in Nutritional Biochemistry. Kim has been a business owner for 20 years. She has the wisdom that comes from experience and combines that with her knowledge of the franchise industry and passionate personality to inspire people to achieve their dream of business ownership. In all her pursuits, she desires to be a role model and influence others to live their best life! Kim lives with her family on the seacoast in Southern NH. She can be reached Kim Daly is one of America’s Top Franchise Consultants who has helped thousands of people explore franchise opportunities. For over 20 years, she has traveled the country as a keynote speaker and business break out leader and has hosted her own live events educating, motivating and inspiring Americans to the dream of small business ownership through the proven systems of a franchise. Prior to becoming a franchise consultant, Kim ran her own health & fitness based consulting firm and worked with Dr. Denis Waitley, Denise Austin, eDiets.com, Gold’s Gym and many other national health and wellness brands. She launched the first health and fitness marketplace at USATODAY.com called BeHealthyNow. She was a personal trainer in college and a Miss America contestant. She graduated Summa Cum Laude with a degree in Nutritional Biochemistry and a minor in sports nutrition. Kim has been a business owner for 20 years. She has the wisdom that comes from experience and combines that with her knowledge of the franchise industry and passionate personality to inspire people to achieve their dream of business ownership. In all her pursuits, she desires to be a role model and influence others to live their best life! at 603-964-2910 or via email: KDaly@FranChoice.com. Shownotes: What is a franchise? What is the biggest difference between starting a business from scratch and going with a franchise? Are franchises something that can be relatively passive for individuals looking to create wealth through owning businesses? Kim talks about the process of selecting a franchise https://thedalycoach.com/

If you want to be wealthy, do as the wealthy do. The wealthy do not use IRAs and 401Ks to invest in heavy loaded mutual funds. That system is set up to make others wealthy! The ultra-wealthy get a completely different set of options when it comes to investing their money. They often have direct ownerships in businesses and real estate. They may own publicly traded equities, but they are not paying the fees that most people do. The ultra-wealthy also understand the importance of leverage and apply it judiciously whenever possible to increase their returns. They are also keenly aware of tax efficient investment strategies. Perhaps the biggest difference between the typical retail investor and the ultra wealthy is that the latter does not simply hope for the success of their investments: they engineer it! What does that mean? Well, let’s take permanent life insurance as an example. Dave Ramsey and Suze Orman tell you to stay away from it. Yet, the wealthiest families in the world like the Rothschilds and the Romneys have used these products for generations to preserve and build wealth. In fact, the wealthier the family, the more likely it is that they are using some kind of permanent life insurance as part of their wealth building strategy. You see, the affluent do not view permanent life insurance policies as simply assets. They use the elements of permanent life insurance to enhance their other investments. Life insurance, when used properly, is a tool to leverage your other investments. So, again, why would Dave Ramsey and Suze Orman tell you that permanent life insurance is a bad idea? Well… a fool with a tool is still a fool. It’s hard to become wealthy if you are a fool (or at least to maintain your wealth for long). I have been trying to uncover these kinds of secrets of the wealthy for years now. Along the way, I’ve learned a ton and have tried diligently to pass this information on to you. I know there is a lot to absorb. However, I will say this. If you do nothing more than to pay close attention to the concepts of what we call Wealth Formula Banking and Velocity Plus that we discuss on this week’s Wealth Formula Podcast, I truly believe that I will have done you a service. Don’t miss it! Christian Allen, AAMS, AWMA Christian joined the financial services industry in 2004. Over the course of his career to date, he has developed a broad-based knowledge and experience set. He began as a traditional advisor, working with local clients in his home state. In that context, he began a movement of successfully partnering with other professionals, including accountants and attorneys, to assist clients in implementing sound financial strategies. He spent more than five years in management with 2 regional planning firms, during which time he assisted new and seasoned professionals in creating efficient systems and methods to build meaningful practices. Over the last several years, he has expanded to working across the country, teaching financial principles, and working with clients across a broad spectrum, including wealth accumulation, retirement distribution planning, as well as innovative, advanced planning strategies for both high-income and high-net-worth individuals and businesses. He’s a member of AALU, and holds the designations of Accredited Asset Management SpecialistSM and Accredited Wealth Management AdvisorSM Christian is married and has two children, and is an avid sports fan. Rod Zabriskie, MBA Rod has been in financial services since 2009. Prior to going into business for himself, he worked in marketing and finance with several small businesses. He had the opportunity to purchase an existing furniture business in 2007, just prior to the Great Recession. The experience of struggling to stay afloat amid difficult economic conditions inspires Rod every day in his efforts to educate and assist his clients in implementing sound financial strategies. He strongly advocates for establishing a firm foundation, utilizing proven strategies and financial tools to create a strong base upon which we can each build our financial house. In addition to focusing on Wealth Formula Banking and Velocity Plus, he has expertise in retirement income planning. Rod has a bachelor’s degree in Marketing Communications, and an MBA with an emphasis in Entrepreneurship. He and his wife Jodi are the proud parents of 7 wonderful children. As a family they thrive on spending time exploring nature, playing games and doing projects together. He enjoys sports, music and reading. Shownotes: Infinite Banking Indexed Universal Life Why would you not want to have exposure to the market with the guardrails that you get with Velocity Plus? The creative investment strategies some high net worth people are doing.

People are social animals. We aren’t designed to be wearing masks, not touching each other, and quarantining. Yet for the last six months, that’s been our predicament. At the same time, we are increasing our dependence on digital socializing through social media and have significantly increased our collective screen times and subsequent exposure to toxic blue light at all hours of the day and night. The whole scenario is a perfect set-up for individuals already susceptible to depression or other mental health issues. In fact, people who have never experienced any psychological issues in the past are now experiencing it for the first time because of the inorganic nature of our current lifestyles. Divorces, domestic violence, and suicide rates have dramatically increased across the country. Yet, this kind of fall-out from Covid-19 have not been appreciated adequately in the media and recognized as considerations in the big picture of pandemic-era policy. The non-medical, non-economic consequences of the pandemic are real and have had a huge negative impact on many of our lives. To hear about what’s going on out there in this part of human existence, this week’s Wealth Formula Podcast features a conversation with therapist and personal coach, Joel Wade.  If Covid has got you down, make sure to listen to this conversation! Joel F. Wade, Ph.D. is Marriage and Family Therapist and Life Coach, and the author of The Virtue of Happiness, Mastering Happiness, The San People of the Kalahari, and an in-depth online course: A Master’s Course in Happiness, drawing from the increasingly useful research in psychology in general, and positive psychology in particular; and his nearly four decades of working with people professionally. He has written regularly for a variety of publications, including The New Individualist and The Good Men Project; and the Beyond Wealth columns for the Oxford Club. He’s also a world class athlete, having won multiple national and world championships in water polo. Dr. Wade enjoys teaching clear, practical skills and ideas that can be used immediately, inspiring his readers and listeners to take effective steps toward a more rewarding, joyful, and resilient life. As a Life Coach he works with people around the world via phone and Skype, and can be found at www.drjoelwade.com. Shownotes: People are feeling like everything is on pause these days. There are certain habits or things that make depression more likely. How does our mood system help us survive a situation that we are stuck in? Post-traumatic growth https://drjoelwade.com

It is the second week of September—my birthday week. And…as I reflect on the past 12 months, I can’t help but think, “What a shitty year”. The only solace I take in my reflection is knowing how radically things can change over the course of 12 months. The pendulum just needs to move the other way. The good news is that this time next year could, and probably will, look very different. We could be getting on planes to meet up in Dallas for a Wealth Formula meetup. We could be meeting up at the bar, shaking hands, and even hugging each other without masks and disinfectants. We could also be looking at a different economy. Perhaps things will have taken a turn for the worse from pandemic-age repercussions. Or…perhaps the sheer magnitude of pent-up desire for people to go out and have a good time will power GDP to record growth launching us into the roaring 20s. I actually think that could turn out to be an accurate prediction. I know I will be out there spending! The point is that Covid-19 has already happened. I know it’s not over yet but I think it’s wise, and certainly more fun, to think about what happens next. Of course this is an investing program so let’s focus on that subject. If you are in our Accredited Investor Club, you probably know that I have been very clear on my investment thesis in the past couple of years—“keep it boring, stupid”. This is generally good advice for all season but we do need to adapt to new environments and recognize opportunities when they become available. One of the spaces that I am interested in exploring over the next 12 months is the hotel space. Admittedly, my only previous hotel investment has not gone well. In fact, it was a construction project off-shore that has had lots of problems and, as a result, has soured me both on construction and on investing outside of the United States. But I’m not going to throw the baby out with the bathwater. I think there may be a real opportunity in the bread and butter domestic hotel space in the United States and so I’m watching it closely to see if and when it might be a good time to get involved. So, in the spirit of looking ahead at better days and possible investment targets in the post-covid era, I asked an expert in the area to come on the show and share his experience in the space. Make sure you listen to this week’s episode of Wealth Formula Podcast to see if investing hotels might be right for you! TITAN Hospitality was founded by Steve Usher. Prior to starting the company, Mr. Usher was the Pacific Northwest Representative for CB Richard Ellis’ National Lodging & Hospitality Services Group in San Francisco. He serves on the Board of Directors of San Luis Obispo-based Martin Resorts and is a licensed California real estate broker. Shownotes: What is the main difference between investing in hotels and investing in apartments? Steve talks about the different hotel investment classes What are the issues with debt in the hotel space? What is Steve’s advice to potential buyers who are considering investing in hotels? phone: 626-926-0000 email: TitanHospitality1@gmail.com