Jace Mattinson and Clark Sheffield host a podcast called Millionaire’s Unveiled – they take a deeper dive into the details of how millionaires got started, their decisions along the way, and what they’re doing now not only to keep, but also grow, their sought after “millionaire” status.
In this episode, Jace and Clark chat to Jack Bosch about the many insights they have learned in their time interviewing millionaires. You’ll discover how millionaires invest their money, how they allocate their portfolios and much more! You’ll also learn about Jace and Clark’s own entrepreneurial journeys, including their successes and how they overcame failures.
Listen and enjoy:
What’s inside:
- Find out how millionaires invest their money
- Discover insights into how millionaires think
- Find out about Jace and Clark’s entrepreneurial journeys
Mentioned in this episode
- Subscribe and rate our podcast at: http://www.Jackbosch.com/podcast
- Follow Jack Bosch on Facebook to get the latest updates: http://www.facebook.com/jack.bosch
- Learn how to flip land for pennies on the dollar: http://www.landprofitgenerator.com
- Listen to Millionaires Unveiled (Jack Bosch was interviewed in episode 87) – https://www.millionairesunveiled.com/podcast
Tweetables:
Transcription:
Announcer: Welcome to the “Forever Cash Life Real Estate Investing” podcast, with your hosts Jack and Michelle Bosch. Together let’s uncover the secrets to building true wealth through real estate and living a purpose-driven life.
Jack: All right. We’re back and I’m super excited to host this podcast today with our guests, Clark Sheffield and Jace Mattinson. How are you guys doing?
Clark: Awesome. Awesome. Thanks for having us. Happy to be here. Great, thank you.
Jack: Wonderful. Wonderful. So Clark and Jace are co-hosts of a very interesting podcast that I came across not too long ago and it’s called “Millionaires Unveiled,” right? Where the interview net worth millionaires about their stories, investment decisions, portfolio, locations and things like that. They have interviewed over a hundred millionaires and they’re also interviewed famous guests like Robert Kiyosaki, Chris Hogan, Tom Wheelwright, Clark [inaudible 00:01:26] and amongst all these great names, I was one of their interviews too. I’m super honored by that. So I’m glad. I wanted to have you guys on here because you have a unique kind of a view, like insight into how millionaires think. And we want to talk about that a little bit. But first of all, tell us your story. The other part, I’m very interested in before I ask the question is that you guys actually use the interview processes to learn for yourself and get yourself on a path to being millionaires. And you’re, one of you guys is already there and you guys are, or the other one is working on it. So I’m super excited about that. Let me share. How did you come up with the idea and give us a little bit of your background. Who wants to go first?
Clark: Go ahead, Jace.
Jace: So, my background, I started after college I went in Big Four accounting, got my CPA license. Before that, I had several jobs. Worked a paper route, had a lawn care business in high school like most people, probably a lot of people don’t even know what a paper route is anymore. But I had a paper route for most of the middle school and all of high school, and then in college I had various jobs. I worked as a janitor for a little bit, I did some accounting work for a bunch of real estate companies, mainly in the self-storage space and then also worked at a couple of tech companies as well. And then after I did Big Four, got my CPA license, I was a partner at an outsourced accounting firm for a little bit, and then I went in-house with one of my clients. And so now that’s kind of what I spend most of my time doing is a CFO for a building materials and hardware company in Texas. We’ve got all sorts of locations, about 40 locations throughout the state. And, you know, the podcast kind of came about. Clark and I had started discussing investing and investments. And we had our dads’ portfolios more or less because our dads were pretty open with their investment strategies and everything. But Clark and I make a lot of jokes sometimes that our dads are a little bit more risk-averse than maybe we are. And that was all we had. And so we kind of wanted to know, you know, we have all these things, these books, “The Millionaire Next Door,” “The Millionaire Mind” that really got into the theory and kind of put some statistics to millionaires, but we never really had any actual detail of what does somebody do when they become a millionaire? How do they invest? Where do they put their investments? How much are they putting in certain asset classes? And so we really wanted to get a good idea on what millionaires do, how they invest, detailed numbers. Does their investment allocation change based upon where they are in life, based upon income levels? Do they stick with one asset class and always stick with one asset class? And so we basically kind of hatched the idea for the show.
Jack: What’s your results? Do they stick with that one asset class, usually?
Jace: Yes. So most don’t actually. And it’s very interesting. Most of the time they diversify a little bit. Now, I wouldn’t say that they’re spread across tons of asset classes until they get a little bit on the higher echelon of the net worth chain, but somebody who for the most part is going to be worth, let’s say under 5 million, you know, they’re going to have a house. A lot of times that house is going to be close to paid off or paid off and but a lot of times these millionaires also going to be in their 40s, 50s and 60s and then they’re going to have any various amounts in the market or in real estate is kind of what we’ve found. We have a few that have been invested in small businesses, but a lot of times it’s if they’re an entrepreneur and they’ve kind of built the business.
Jack: Okay. So, is it fair to say that they focused on, it’s kind of always my impression that I see, but you guys have the data now. Is it fair to say that they typically focus on one thing to make the money and then they just, then they diversify or did they make the money like eight different things?
Jace: No, at least the initial capital, they’re making it and focused on one thing, whether it’s their job or whether it’s one business or one avenue and then diversifying. It’s only once they get, you know, later in their career, later in life that they then maybe make it in multiple ways.
Jack: Okay. Yeah. And that makes sense because, I mean, from my own experience, like now that we are in that echelon and for, have been for a while, we’re gonna now being presented with all kinds of opportunities and we sometimes invest a little here, invest a little there, invest a little there and some doesn’t work, some does work and some blows up, right? And then all of a sudden you make extra money in other areas and you lose some money in others. But we made our money in land flipping. So that’s just where we focus on for, we put the blinders on it and went there. So, it’s good to hear that you see that that’s kind of a similar pattern for a lot of the millionaires?
Jace: Yeah, they’re definitely, I wouldn’t say what we call shiny object syndrome where they’re dabbling in multiple different ways. Like, they’re getting really good at one, maybe two things, and making a majority of the money initially in those spaces, and then diversifying a little bit. And sometimes, like you said, some of those diversification where they might have an opportunity to come up in another space, that may turn into, you know, another type of business or another type of asset class that performs really well for them. And then they make a whole another chunk of, you know, what I would call somewhat vertical type income in that way.
Jack: That makes sense. Very cool. Great. Clark. So what’s your background? Give us a little bit. Also top four accounting firms, right?
Clark: Yeah. Similar to Jace, started at KPMG, a big accounting firm. Went to BYU undergrad, did accounting, Jace did accounting as well, did my CPA and then went to Notre Dame, did my Masters in accounting, did a couple of years here in New York City at KPMG and then went to a multi-family real estate and property management company here where I lead our accounting and finance and investor relations and all that. So a big company, about 35 buildings, about 350 million, 300 million assets under management and just a big syndication firm. So, I agree exactly what Jace said about how the podcast got started. You know, I think we started making money, right? We started making more money that we could invest and we kind of started saying, “Hey, what do we want to do with it?” Right. We kinda had a general idea, but that’s where the fun started. And we said, “Hey, well, let’s see how other people are doing it. Right? Let’s see how other people are diversifying.” And Jace kinda touched on it briefly, but he kind of coined the term, the three-legged stool for small business, money in the markets and then real estate. And so we both kind of said to each other, “Hey, you know, maybe that’s kind of the allocation that we want to take, but let’s see how people do it initially and kinda hear some of these stories.” And some people are more interested in the stories and some people are more interested in the allocation of some of these millionaires. So it’s been an interesting journey so far.
Jack: Wonderful. So I’m interested in some of them, a couple of the stories of the millionaires, but then I also want to dive into a little bit more of your guys’ story and what you have guys taken from it. But let’s start with a story. Give me like that, like the one or two most crazy stories that you’ve heard of how, or not the crazy ones, but the ones… Like, here’s the thing. A lot of our listeners are people who want to create a life of abundance, who want to be the hero for somebody in their family, for hero, for their parents, hero for their kid’s, hero, and they want to be doing something that is actually doable, that is actually not rocket science to create, right? There’s so many, like you look at Elon Musk, yes, he created a software. I mean, most people can’t, don’t know how to create a software and then make $60 million or whatever he made, and then make another 300 million and then invested in the two rocket science company and make like 12 billion or so, right? That’s not the path for the normal person, your normal person. So, of the guys that you interviewed, is there anyone out there that you can say, “Man, this guy or lady, right, has done a path that is, that can kind of be duplicated or what’s the mindset of these guys?” Just something that stood out that you can kind of point towards to somebody listening here saying like, “Well, I need to have some pointers that can get me down that road?”
Clark: Yeah. So I’ll give you one story and then, and Jace, you can share another one if something comes to your mind. I think, I mean, the very basic of the basic is just you just sock away money and put it into savings and you’ll get there eventually, right? But one that’s a little more interesting and one that kind of touches on cash flow is we interviewed a military professional, he was staged in a Southeast Asia, and he started buying houses in Memphis or in Tennessee, I think different locations throughout Tennessee and in the Southeast or maybe it was Alabama, Jace, can’t remember. Anyway. So he started buying houses and all of them were anywhere from $40,000 to $90,000. And the whole goal was, initially the goal was hey, he had hoarded some cash and save some cash, and then he bought this $40, 000, $50,000 home, all about three beds, two baths, he thinks are kind of the sweet spot. And he just started buying these houses and pretty soon he had accumulated four or five and then six or seven. And he kept using the same team, the same real estate team. And then he just kinda, as his income went up in the military, he kept buying them. But they were all, you know, $40, 000 to $90,000 homes, so they weren’t expensive. And then flash forward here, he’s in South Korea I think, and now he owns 15 single-family homes and he’s making $10,000 to $15,000 a month and they’ve all appreciated now in value. They’re all somewhere between, you know, a $100,000 to $200,000 in value. But initially, it was just, “Hey, I’m going to buy a $40,000, $50,000 home. I’m going to fix it up or I’m going to repair a couple things and I’m going to try and rent it out.” And then from there, he said, “Hey, it’s doable” you know, and something down the road came on sale and he bought another one and then it just started the cycle. As the cash kind of started flowing, he kept buying houses. And I think that’s doable. You know, nobody said you have to buy them all in the first few years. Nobody said you have to buy them in 10 years, right? You could even buy one every couple of years and then in 30 or 40 years if you put them on 15-year mortgages at $50,000 to $100,000 homes, even if they’re leveraged, in 30, 40 years, you could have them all paid off. A lot of people are doing that, a lot of you know, lower end, lower costs, you know, less barrier to entry on single-family homes of something that’s definitely attainable regardless of income.
Jack: Absolutely. And we have done part of that, like we’ve grown. And even last weekend we were in Dallas at an event, we host our events, and somebody was asking, was like, “Well, your daughter’s gonna go to college some point of time. What is your plan for that?” Now, obviously we have assets for that, but I was like, “Well, that’s already taken care of.” One rental house pays for Harvard, right? Not that she is going to go to Harvard, but if she’s accepted at Harvard or like equally expensive school, then one of my rental houses, I might need… I might be willing to sell one of the many that we have for Harvard and one for her living expenses and we are done. Right? So, by doing that, not only can literally the average American, if they have decent credit and have put away a few dollars, they can buy one of these houses, pay it off while their kids grow up, and by the time their kids grow up, if they need to, they can sell that thing and now the kid can go to college and graduate from college with zero debt, which is one of the biggest, like, things that brings kids down to these days because they graduated with a $100,000 in student debt that takes them 30 years to pay off.
Clark: Yeah. Yeah. And it starts you behind the eight ball, you know. It’s harder to get in front, a lot of these guys kind of get, started going early, but even if you’re only making, you know, $40,000, $50,000, $60,000, $70,000 a year, it’s attainable.
Jack: Yeah, absolutely. And then you imagine you buy two or three or four of those, now you not only have cash flow but your kids’ future is basically somewhat taken care of. It’s… Great. And perhaps a second, story? So I really liked that one. That’s totally doable for everyone out there. Now, that’s not hassle-free because these rental houses come with hassles, but you can either have no hassles or you can have actually an abundant lifestyle, so.
Clark: Yeah. But it’s been amazing to me, you know, as we’ve interviewed a lot of these people, and I think this gentleman specifically, but also a nurse that had seven or eight single-family rentals that, you know, oftentimes we’d ask the question, “Hey, when’s the last time you saw this house?” Because, they lived out of state or they lived across the country. And in several situations, they say, “Oh, it’s been three or four years,” you know, and they just found a property management company that took care of it. And of course there are hassles along the way and maybe some people have had bigger issues, right? But in several situations, they’ve said, “Oh, gosh, I haven’t been to the house four or five years.”
Jack: And ultimately, it’s like the cash flows could be good, could be bad, one month is good, one month is bad. But the appreciation that happens over the long term is just what thing. We have houses that we sold where we probably didn’t make a dollar in appreciation because they were kind of in a bad area and they’ve got a, and the tenants kind of did, almost every tenant either they didn’t renew after a year and left the place trashed or they did a midnight move up, midnight move out or something like that. So almost every year we had to put in like a $5,000, $6,000 into his house to fix them up again because they also left too much damage. So after like five years, we were like, “We’re not going to want to do that on that house anymore.” Sold it, but we sold it for $100,000 more than we bought it. We still made money, right?
Clark: Yeah.
Jack: We still made a ton of money and then we 1031 exchanged that into other properties in other markets that now spit up more money. But I have houses, I have about 25 houses that I’ve never seen.
Clark: Wow. Wow. How many out-of-state?
Jack: They’re all out-of-state
Clark: All out-of-state.
Jack: Those are all out-of-state. The one in-state I’ve seen but some of them I haven’t seen for like eight years.
Clark: Wow.
Jack: But yeah, it does, so you can’t automate it. So how about you, Jace. Do you have any, a second story for me, perhaps?
Jace: Yeah, I think the second story that we should share, and maybe I’ll share a short third one. But the second one is, you know, we had a janitor on, guy’s never, he worked for the school district, he’s never made more than 50 grand basically. Started out at 30 grand and he was able to save over the years and use the compounded interest. In fact, he actually didn’t even really have a ton of real estate. He just had his primary residence. But I think that this story just goes to show and a lot of people liked that story because it is an underdog story, but he was able to do it on a very low, what we would consider below a median income in the United States today and was able to get there. And, you know, super good dudes, super humble about it. Just said, “Hey, look, like this was my calling. I wanted to do it, but I also wanted to have, you know, financial freedom especially towards retirement.” And this guy didn’t wait. I mean, he didn’t get there when he was 70, like he got there in his 50s. I think sometimes we forget that it is possible to, you know, if you plug away at something that, you know, 20 to 30-year timeline is not ridiculous to think about. So if you start in your 20s then you can attain something like that in your 50s. If you don’t start until you’re in your 40s then maybe it’s not realistic to get there, you know, in a decade or less. But on the flip side, we do have some that have done it in less than a year, you know, whether that’s been through business or some savvy real estate and investments.
You know, the next one I would kind of share was, you know, we had a guy who was homeless. And he came from homeless, living under a bridge, decided he didn’t want that life and went on to do various business ventures, failed at several, and eventually was able to kind of get to a point where he was making some good money and became a millionaire. In fact, I think today’s worth about 5 million and he’s in his late 30s, or early 40s now. So I think those two stories are, you know, it’s anybody can do it in this country. You just really got to have some resiliency. You’ve got to have some persistence and, you know, you kind of make your own luck if you put those two together.
Jack: Absolutely. There’s actually a book that I read a long time ago. It’s called “How To Make Your Own Luck” I can’t find it anymore, but it was a funny and good book.
Jace: It was a pretty good book.
Jack: And the thing you talk about that, that you don’t, it’s not like stuff happens to you. Luck is a crossing of preparation and opportunity, right? Everyone gets presented with opportunities all day long. If you’re not ready for them, if you don’t even know how to see them, then they’re going to pass you by, right? And then people are going to call you lucky, but no, you were prepared. You prepared your mind and so on. So very cool. Yes. So that goes to a point that everyone is like, I have to think too, when we do seminars and same people is like, “I want to have, by the end of next year, I want to be, have $3 million or $10 million,” is like, that’s cool.” Most people don’t make that, for most people. And in five years you can have that. That’s no problem, right? Because it doesn’t go or five or 10 years, that’s not a problem. Now, it’s just people are so impatient. So good things, take a little time. Now, you can, within one year you can, it’s totally possible to get out of a job, to go be your own boss, make a really good living. But if you want that $10 million, $20 million, $30 million, it usually takes a while to get there, right? So you got to build this up a little bit and you’ve got to have that patience. And if you’re in your 20s or 30s, then you got 70 years in front of you, right? Just enjoy the process, enjoy the process, try some things, do some stuff. That’s at least my opinion. Very cool. So now I’m interested to hearing like what have you guys done with the knowledge that you got from all these people? How have you guys implemented that into your life?
Jace: Yeah, I’ll go first. I think the biggest thing, you know, Clark hit on this, this three-legged stool that I like to talk about and part of that three-legged stool is equity investments. And I’ve put, you know, Roth, IRA and HSA and stuff in those buckets. And part of that is I’ve been doing that for a long, long, long time and I have no problem having public marketing or public market exposure. The other leg is small business or equity in private businesses. And, you know, that ideally, I would like to have about a third of my portfolio. And so I’ve made some, you know, I’ve got some ownership in my company right now and then I’ve got some other plans to get some ownership in some other private businesses, because private businesses, for the most part, you know, are what fuel the American and North American economy. And there’s a lot better returns usually that you can get internally from private businesses and owning private businesses than you can in other spaces. And the other third is real estate. And, you know, whether that’s single-family or multi-family that’ll probably evolve over my lifetime. But those are the kinds of the three buckets that I really concentrate on.
Obviously, it takes a little bit more capital to put into small businesses of, you know, I don’t know that I would invest $500,000 in a new venture, but I would definitely go look at acquiring something that’s already producing cash flow. And it’s kind of interesting. I’ve got this like three-legged stool kinda like hammered in my head, especially after interviewing several of these millionaires and some of the ones on the upper echelon of the wealth chart that, you know, there’s an article that came out today, I don’t know if you’re familiar with TIGER 21 or your listeners are. But basically, it’s a group of people that all have a net worths over $10 million. And just recently they kind of put this pie chart together. And right now, Q3 2018 through Q2 2019 their allocation is sitting 28% real estate, 24% private equity, 21% in public equities, and then the rest is very, you know, between some fixed income hedge funds and some cash. And, you know, I look at that and I’m like, well, what I’ve got in my head from interviewing all these millionaires and the way I kind of want to do my thing is not far off from that. And these are some of the wealthiest people in our country that have kind of gotten their heads together and this is what they think is an ideal space. Now, obviously I don’t have all the detail of what that’s made up of, but I think it’s interesting that they’re kind of split a fourth, a fourth and a fourth, and then the other fourth is, you know, very cash, fixed income, hedge funds. And the cash thing is an interesting topic. You know, Clark and I sometimes we’ll ask these guests how much they keep in cash if they do have, you know, a lot. And it’s all over the board, between 5% and 20%, and I think that’s one thing where you kinda just have to decide for yourself like how much cash you want to keep on hand for opportunity, you know [inaudible 00:22:42]
Jack: Yeah. And that also changes based on the market cycles, right? So now we’re in the top of the market cycle, probably you want to have, keep a little extra cash or we like to keep a little extra cash on hand because when the market goes through kind of a, I don’t expect a big recession or anything like that, but if it goes through a little adjustment, there’s going to be opportunities popping up and if you have cash, you can take advantage of those. Absolutely. Great. How about you Clark? I know you’re in multi… You chose to jump into multi-family as one of the vehicles, right? Oh, go ahead.
Clark: No, I was gonna touch on what Jace finished up with there that a lot of people have found success not allocating, right, differently. For example, you have a lot in real estate and land and there’s other people that say, “Hey, I don’t want to invest in the markets at all because I feel like I can’t control it. You know, I can’t, I don’t know what, you know, I can’t, it’s not in my control. I don’t want to invest somewhere where I can’t have the control.” And so, you know, whether these buckets work for Jace and I, there’s plenty of people that don’t do it, right? And so to each his own. So yeah. I’m in a, just big picture, a couple of real estate’s syndications. Jace and I are actually currently looking at a smaller multi-family complex now that has an attached laundromat unit. And so we’re working on some cash flow from the laundromat, and then similar to Jace, I have some in the market, retirement accounts, HSA, no kids yet. So nothing like if I had 29 or something. But I think, you know, what these interviews had done for me is said, you know, I’m relatively young, I’m 29. And so what they’ve done for me is saying, “Hey, here’s what people are doing.” You know, it’s given me exposure to things, right, and to different investment options, different scenarios, different things, different strategies people are trying. And I think I’ll just take that with me throughout life and say, “Hey, you know, I heard this Jack guy, he did land flipping, right? Now I have some extra money. Let’s go try that.” Right? Or, “This guy is doing this strategy,” or “Oh, this Airbnb strategy.” You know, we talked to a guy who was doing a unique, he does Airbnb for mountain biking. That’s all he does. So he just buys them up in the mountains and he does them for mountain biking. And so, just as I’m getting started here and starting to invest and build up cash and kinda keep things open, you know, that’s what this has done for me.
Jack: Wonderful. Awesome. I love it. I mean, and now you have actually created it for other people. So your podcast is called “Millionaires Unveiled,” right? So everyone go check it out. So in order to finalize the podcast, I just, I want to ask a few questions. Actually have one extra question before we do that, and that is, if you could highlight one or two characteristics of those millionaires that you can find that they kind of had in common, what would that be?
Clark: I’ll start with that. I think it’s intentionality and focus, you know. I think regardless of how someone wants to allocate their net worth, regardless of what they want to invest in or what their plans for the future are, is they’re intentional. They know they want to save, they know they want to invest regardless of how it is and their focused to do it. And sure, every now and then, right, like somebody has a failure or they slow down a little bit, but at the end of the day these guys know what they wanna do. They know what they’re focused on, and girls obviously, and they’re intentional and their intentionality carries them, carries their investments.
Jack: Okay. How about you, Jace? What do you..?
Jace: I would just add resiliency and persistence. You know, it’s going to take time for most people. A lot of our millionaires, like you hear the stories that they’ve had a failure too, whether it’s a bad investment, failed business, you know, lost some money on a real estate deal or whatever. They’re still resilient, they’re persistent and they keep with it over and over, year after year, after year, decade after decade to kind of get to that point.
Jack: Awesome. All right. Very cool. So are you guys okay with got a couple of quick hitting questions? A lightning round?
Jace: Yeah. Perfect.
Jack: That’s okay. Simply, easy questions…
Jace: We can’t say no to that, man, because that’s what we did to you when you came on ours.
Jack: That’s right. That’s right. That’s true. I remember that. So these are very simple. And what’s the best book you’ve ever read that help you through in your career?
Clark: We were both just gonna answer at the same time. You know, I just finished “Miracle Morning” by Hal Elrod and, you know, I was always the person that said I’m not a morning person and I still feel that way and he kind of acknowledges in the book ,you know, that’s the case. But I’ve just kinda realized, hey, if I want to be successful, whether it’s, you know, whatever, in any aspect of my life, marriage, family, investing, I’ve gotta be intentional with my self-development. And that book really helped me, helped me realize and understand that setting a time, time for yourself is critical.
Jack: All right, wonderful. Yeah, I read this book, I tried it, I failed at it because I’m the eternal non-morning person. So I get the… I agree with the points of the intentionality and the things that you need to do. I just like to sleep until 8:00 because it’s just not happening in my life. So, but the other pieces, I support you [inaudible 00:27:53] What about you, Jace?
Jace: That’s a tough question. I think the book that’s making the most, the impression on me right now is a book I’m in the middle of reading. It’s called “Atomic Habits” by James Clear. It was actually just recommended to us on our podcast. And it just gets into the detail of like how we form habits and the critical, you know, mindset that develops around the way we do the things that we do. And for me, I think just understanding some of the psychology behind what drives some of our habits and how to change them has been super critical and I’m not even finished with the book.
Jack: Awesome. All right, wonderful. Next question is what’s the one thing you wish you would’ve done differently when you first started out investing or started on the path?
Clark: I wish I would have started reading earlier and listening to podcasts and just hearing, you know, either stories or strategies or whatever. I think the earlier you get exposed to it, the earlier you start developing yourself, the earlier you continue to learn, you know, you just get motivated, right? You hear stories of successful people, you read people doing successful things, it just and it starts making you want to do the same. So, I feel like I started that early after college, but I feel like I wish I would have exposed that even earlier in my life.
Jack: Okay. How abou you, Jace?
Jace: I’m the same. You know, I started investing and earning when I was a teenager. I still had opportunities to do stuff earlier. In fact, there’s a funny story that goes around my family about how I spent $2,000 at Taco Bell when I was 16 years old and had no business spending $2,000 a Taco Bell because I was living at home and everything else. And, you know, I look back to some of the money I was making…
Jack: How in the world do you spend $2,000 at Taco Bell?
Jace: In a year. I don’t know, buying burritos.
Jack: A year. Okay. But not like you invited the entire city because it’s hard…
Jace: No, no, no, no. You were going to come, right?. No, I look back, i had a great time, but if I would’ve been able to take some of that money and either invest in myself at that point or invest even in public markets with some of that money, you know, I just look how much it’d be worth today at 31 years old. And that’s probably my biggest, just starting early. I think anybody always wants to like, you know, start earlier, get exposure earlier. But it’s true. It helps.
Jack: Yeah. I remember reading in a book about Warren Buffet, Warren buffet one time, his wife wanted to remodel their house, the house that he still lives in. And she spent like making an addition spends I think $35,000 back in the ’60s or so or ’70s on that remodel. And he was just almost fainted. He’s like, “Can you do, you know how much that will be once in, 30 years from now, right, how much that would compound to?” They still spent it and that thing was probably well spent. But yeah, it goes to that same point. Great. So have you guys had any failures already in your career, and if yes, what would be the biggest failure that you guys have found so far or come across so far?
Clark: Yeah. I’d say I just invested last year in syndication and it’s here in New York with the company I work for in the rent, we do a lot in the rent stabilization space, and the rent laws just turned South on us. So I probably lost, you know, 40% of that.
Jack: Yeah, I just heard, they just did a lot of changes there. Yeah.
Clark: Yeah. And what would I do differently? I don’t know. You know, I thought at the time it was a good investment. You know, I think the lesson learned probably is, “Hey, you do as much due diligence and kind of foresight as you can. And after that, you make a decision and you live with it.” Right? I mean, there’s nothing at the time where I would’ve known. I guess also, a lesson is you don’t put all your eggs in one basket or on one deal in case something like that were to happen, but you know it happened and…
Jack: You make sure that it doesn’t exist, right?
Clark: Yeah. I mean, it is what it is. So what am I going to do, you know?
Jack: Yeah. How about you Jace?
Jace: Yeah, I think probably the biggest mistakes I’ve made are just not vetting a few people that I’ve hired really well and those have, you know, multiplied ended several thousand dollar mistakes. I haven’t had a deal per se yet lose a ton of money like Clark just alluded to, but definitely hiring some people that I didn’t do enough due diligence on that ended up costing, you know, a lot of money.
Jack: All right. Well, I’ve done both, right? So, yeah, it makes sense. Absolutely. Now, we just bought, a year ago, apartment complex and it had more challenges than we anticipated it had. So the property went down in occupancy to 60-something percent. The property was losing money. I had to put money out of my own pocket to make sure our investors are paid and so on. But the good news is it took a year and now it’s 97% occupied. It’s now producing cash. We’ll ultimately get that money back. But at the time, there’s some tough times in between. And you gotta make sure you work with the right people also over the right things and vet everyone. And so that all goes into one thing. Good stuff here guys. All right. So then, tell me about your habits. So you read the “Miracle Morning,” so well, but prior to that, or even right now, what kind of habits do you already have? Do you have any morning habits or daily habits that contribute to success?
Clark: I’m trying to read every single night before I go to bed. You know, if I get the time in the morning, then great. If I don’t, you know, then I’m trying to read some at night and, you know, I feel like if I read 10, 15 minutes every day, I mean, I’m always reading throughout the day and everyone gets sent articles and at work, you’re looking things up and I get all that, but kind of 10, 15 minutes at night where I’m just trying to dedicate to just learning the book I’m in, trying to be full into it and, and engaged is, is one thing I’m really focused on right now.
Jack: Awesome. All right. Jace.
Jace: Yeah,just reviewing my goals on a daily basis, weekly basis and creating kind of my financial statements on a monthly basis so that I can kind of cater everything back to my goals, and if I need to adjust something, I can adjust something instead of waiting, you know, and doing it once a year
Jack: Spoken like a true CFO. That’s good. So but you know what? This is good. I mean, this important this stuff. So, few people do that. Like, if you don’t stay in touch with your goals, you forget about them, you get off track. So, love it. So, now based on all the interviews you’ve done, that you’ve guys done, last question. What’s the single best piece of advice you can give our listeners who are just starting on their journey? And I mean, you guys have now interviewed, you have all the data right now, you’re well on your way yourself. And I absolutely love what you guys, the path that you guys have taken. So what’s one piece of advice you could give somebody else?
Clark: Yeah. I’d say I kind of go back to what we said earlier is start early and be intentional. I think too often people think, hey, either A, I don’t know how to get started, or B, I don’t have enough to get started. And there’s so much resources out there, there’s so much information out there. There’s podcasts, there’s websites, there’s books, right? All successful people have put something together in a sense. And so there’s so much information out there to decide how you want to get started. And there’s people that get started for nothing, right? If you want to, you can buy land for cheap, you can buy a house for cheap, you can put a little bit in the market. And so you just, you gotta be intentional. You got to set your goals and say, “Hey, this is the year, this is the week, or this is the month I’m going to do it.” And then you got to get started.
Jack: Right. Wonderful.
Jace: I’ll say elevate your circle of influence. So if there’s somebody you want to be like, figure out how to get those types of people in your circle. You know, one thing that was suggested to me a long time ago that has played out extremely well was to donate to some of these people’s charity. If you’re trying to figure out how to get in, whether it’s a meeting with them or lunch with them, or getting that type of circle, donate to their charity, donate to something that’s important to them. Most likely these people, financially, you’re not going to change their life by buying them lunch or dinner or something but offering to do that kind of thing, you know, it’s worked out great for me. I know a lot of other people that it’s worked out, you know really well. And there’s some people that I’ve found myself with at lunch or on bike rides with that, you know, it’s still kinda, you gotta pinch me and I’m shocked that it worked out the way it did, but I followed some people’s advice that way and it’s, it’s worked out.
Jack: Okay. So you guys have 29 about both of you, approximately?
Jace: 31, for me.
Jack: 31, 29. So you really, you guys are young kids. Now, I feel like I’m 29 or 31, but I’m 49. I can tell you as I’m getting up into the close to the 50s and saying there’s one thing that most wealthy people that I’ve met that they’re, except for perhaps a few, but the majority, and they get all that. They love seeing young guys or ladies like they’re seeing young guys actually do that because they know, we know, I know what it took to get there, right? And when we see somebody that is doing what it takes to get there, we automatically want to reach a hand and help it. But the issue is that there’s a million people that want your time but only a few of them are really doing what it takes. If you set yourself apart from that, by going, taking that initiative they’re more than welcome or happy to actually meet with you and extend a piece of advice, extend an arm and give a helping hand because there’s not enough people like that out there in the world that actually take this up and then grab the bull by the horns and learn what it takes. So I really commend you for that. I’m super excited for what you guys do. I love that you’ve chosen the path of the podcast because instead of just meeting people for lunch and keeping that knowledge, now the world has that knowledge too. So, to my listeners, go make sure you go check out, we put it in the show notes and everything and in the comments underneath, if you watched this on YouTube, make sure you go check out Millionaires Unveiled. I love the stories, and I love the stories that you shared. And if you have interviewed over 101, there’s gotta be someone that you connect with as an audience here that you said, “Oh, my God, I can do that,” and then you go down that path. So thank you very much for being on the call. Anything else? People can find you, right, on millionairesunveiled.com also?
Clark: Yeah, Apple, Stitcher or anything. And if you want to listen to Jack’s episode, that’s Episode number 87 where we interviewed him on our podcast if you want to hear some about our story and…
Jack: Wonderful and they really, you guys asked me some really direct and detailed questions which is good, which is good. I mean, you, if there’s, you want to make sure that the people come on your show actually do what they say they do and have the net worth that they say they have, right? So I’m fully with you.
All right. So with that thank you very much, everyone. Thank you, guys. I think that completes our show as always, love if you give us a five-star review. If you’re watching this on YouTube, make sure you go below like it, subscribe to our channel if you’re watching them, any other kind of platform, give us a five-star review. This concludes our show. Thank you very much. Bye-Bye, everyone.
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