Wealth Formula Podcast

For years, gold was the asset nobody wanted to talk about. It sat there quietly while stocks and real estate continued to rip. Gold was for pessimists. For doomsayers and perma-bears. And then suddenly… gold didn't just wake up. It launched. As of mid-December 2025, spot gold is trading around $4,300–$4,400 an ounce, depending on the market, marking a gain of roughly 60% over the past year and pushing decisively into record territory. The obvious question is: why now? The short answer is that gold isn't reacting to one thing. It's responding to a stacking of pressures that have been quietly building for years and are now impossible to ignore. Start with central banks. For the better part of the last decade, central banks were net sellers or indifferent holders of gold. That changed dramatically after 2022. According to the World Gold Council, central banks have been buying gold at more than double the pace of the pre-COVID years, and 2025 continues that trend, with hundreds of tonnes added to reserves year-to-date. These aren't hedge funds chasing momentum. These are monetary authorities making deliberate, strategic decisions about what they trust to hold value. Why would central banks suddenly want more gold? Because geopolitics has re-entered the chat. We now live in a world where reserves can be frozen, payment systems can be weaponized, and "risk-free" assets depend heavily on political alignment. The World Bank has been explicit that rising geopolitical tensions and global uncertainty are key drivers of gold's surge this year. When trust in the global order erodes, gold benefits. At the same time, the U.S. dollar devaluation thesis is no longer fringe thinking. It is reality. Gold is priced in dollars, and when real yields fall and the dollar weakens, gold historically performs well. That dynamic is playing out again. Reuters has repeatedly pointed to a softer dollar and declining Treasury yields as near-term tailwinds for gold's rally . Bank of America's research echoes this relationship, emphasizing gold's inverse correlation to the dollar and the growing desire among nations to diversify away from dollar-centric reserves . In other words, gold isn't just going up because people are scared. It's going up because confidence in fiat discipline is eroding, slowly but persistently. So…Is gold still a buy or did we miss it? The truth is, both answers can be correct. Yes, gold is expensive relative to where it was a year ago. You don't go up 60% without pulling future returns forward. But what makes this cycle different is that many of the buyers driving demand are price-insensitive. Central banks don't care if gold is up 20% or down 10% in a quarter. They care about long-term reserve integrity. That's why major institutions aren't dismissing the move as a blow-off. Goldman Sachs has cited sustained central-bank demand and the potential for further ETF inflows as supportive of higher prices. J.P. Morgan continues to frame gold as a beneficiary of geopolitical instability and monetary uncertainty, and Bank of America is projecting prices as high as $5,000 an ounce into 2026. Of course, nothing goes up in a straight line. A shift toward tighter monetary policy or a sudden easing of global tensions could cool enthusiasm. Understand though, that gold's breakout isn't just about gold. There is a larger message that should be taken away from all of this. Hard money has come back into favor. Gold is the original hard asset. It's scarce, politically neutral, and has thousands of years of monetary credibility. But it's also heavy, difficult to move, and awkward in a digital world. Bitcoin exists on the same philosophical axis. Both gold and Bitcoin are reactions to the same problem: expanding debt, monetary dilution, and declining confidence in centralized control. Gold is the conservative expression of that view. Bitcoin is the aggressive one. Today, Bitcoin trades around $86,000, still volatile, still controversial, still misunderstood. But if gold's surge is signaling a regime shift toward hard assets, then Bitcoin may simply be earlier in that adoption curve. In other words, gold may be leading the parade. And if history is any guide, when institutions start moving into the oldest form of sound money, they eventually begin exploring the newest. That's the signal worth paying attention to. So this week, I interview Dana Samuelson, an old friend of the show and an expert in everything gold and hard money. Learn more about Dana Samuelson: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dana-samuelson-64793056/

You know, the longer I've been an investor, the more I realize this simple truth: the biggest threat to your wealth isn't the market… it's your own brain. We're all wired the same way—with instincts that were fantastic for avoiding saber-toothed tigers but are absolutely terrible for making good financial decisions. Take something simple like a marathon. If I asked you to predict next year's top finishers, you'd look at last year's results. That works. Human performance doesn't flip upside down in twelve months. The best runners tend to stay the best runners. There aren't that many variables to consider. When we try to apply that same logic to investing, it often blows up in our faces. There are way too many variables to consider when it comes to market behavior to make simple assumptions. Entire sectors rotate from darling to disaster in a heartbeat. Yet our brains keep telling us, "Hey, this worked last year, surely it'll work again." In my view, nowhere is that psychological mismatch more obvious than in real estate right now. A few years ago, when real estate was on fire—cheap debt, rising rents, deals getting snapped up before lunch—everybody wanted in. Fast-forward to today. We've had a rate shock. Values have reset. Properties are selling at steep discounts. And Construction starts have fallen off a cliff. Real estate got slaughtered. But look around now. The market has reset. Assets are selling 30 percent below where they did just after Covid. Jobs and population growth in places like the Carolinas, Texas, and Arizona look fantastic, and interest rates are falling quickly. Every macro indicator you can name is pointing to a major buying opportunity—one of the best in the last 15 years. So naturally… few people are paying attention. Markets that are bottomed out are not sexy. If it's not frothy, it's not newsworthy. This is human nature in a nutshell. When assets are expensive and risk is quietly rising, people feel brave. When assets are attractively priced, and future returns look great, people get scared. It's recency bias: assuming whatever just happened will keep happening. It's loss aversion: we fear losing a buck more than we enjoy making one. It's herd behavior: we'd rather be wrong with the crowd than right by ourselves. And of course, it's confirmation bias—where people seek out whatever headlines validate the emotions they're already feeling. It's not logical. It's not strategic. But it is human. And that's why this week's guest on Wealth Formula Podcast is of value to listen to. He's one of the leading experts in the world on investor psychology—someone who can explain, with real data, why even intelligent investors consistently jump into markets late, bail out early, misread risk, and miss the best opportunities… especially the ones sitting right in front of them. If you've ever wondered why you sometimes make brilliant decisions and other times do the financial equivalent of touching a hot stove twice, this conversation is going to hit home. Learn more about Prof. Terrance Odean: https://haas.berkeley.edu/faculty/terrance-odean/

Homeownership has been baked into the American Dream for nearly a century. Politicians, parents, and banks all tell you the same thing: "Buy a house as soon as you can. It's your biggest asset." But as a real estate guy who actually understands how wealth is created… I'm not convinced it makes sense for everyone—especially early in your career. Let me explain. Say you finally start making some real money—maybe you're a doctor fresh out of residency. The cultural script kicks in immediately: Buy a house. Build equity. Feel responsible. But here's the part most people forget: your primary home is not an asset. As Robert Kiyosaki puts it, if something takes money out of your pocket, it's not an asset—it's a liability. According to Bankrate and the Census Bureau, U.S. homeowners spend around $17,000 per year just to maintain and operate their homes—and that's before you make a single mortgage payment. That's property taxes, insurance, utilities, landscaping, repair bills, HOA fees… the list goes on. If your house is worth $1.5M, even the bare-minimum 1% annual maintenance rule hits you with $15,000 a year just to keep the place from deteriorating. Add insurance, taxes, utilities, and everything else, and you're looking at $30,000–$40,000 per year in unavoidable, non-negotiable carrying costs. And that still doesn't cover the roof that fails, the appliances that die, or the curveballs Mother Nature throws at you. None of that feels like an "asset" to me. Now, to be fair, people don't usually buy homes as investments. They buy them for stability, a place to raise kids, a sense of being "settled." It's emotional. It's psychological. And it's real. But if you're young—and especially if you haven't hit your first million—it's worth asking yourself a tough question: Is buying a home right now the best financial move… or just the most familiar one? Because historically, U.S. home prices appreciate around 4.3% a year (Case-Shiller). Meanwhile, the S&P 500 averages closer to 10%. And if you're in real estate investing? A solid multifamily value-add deal often targets 16–20% IRR—plus tax advantages your primary home will never give you. So if you're just getting started, it might make sense to delay that home purchase. Invest first. Build your passive income. Let your assets—not your salary—pay for your lifestyle. Then when you do buy a home, you'll be doing it from a position of strength, not strain. The irony is this: waiting often gets you to the dream home faster because your capital compounds instead of being trapped in drywall, windows, and a backyard you barely have time to enjoy. This Week on Wealth Formula Podcast, I interview expert Dr. Ken Johnson, who digs even deeper into this question—and lays out why homeownership isn't the golden ticket people think it is, especially for high earners early in their wealth-building years. Links mentioned: Beracha and Johnson Housing Ranking Index: https://www.ares.org/page/beracha-johnson-housing-ranking-index Waller, Weeks and Johnson Rental Index: https://www.ares.org/page/waller-weeks-johnson-rental-index Price-to-Rent Ratio Report: https://therealestateinitiative.com/price-to-rent-ratios/ Top 100 Housing Markets - Inflation Adjusted: https://therealestateinitiative.com/housing-top-100/ Learn more about Dr. Ken Johnson: https://olemiss.edu/profiles/khjohns3

It's that time of the year again—Black Friday, Cyber Monday. Everyone loves a deal. If you've been investing long enough, you know one important fact: there is always something on sale. The problem is the herd never sees it. They're too busy chasing whatever feels safe because it's setting new records. And right now? That's the stock market. That's gold. Everyone's piling into the most expensive things they can find and patting themselves on the back for being "prudent." But smart investors don't chase what's already expensive. They look for the thing sitting quietly on the clearance rack, the thing nobody wants yet. And today, that thing is real estate—particularly apartments. We've seen this movie before. Think back to the early 2000s. After the dot-com crash, everybody ran to gold and Treasuries. Meanwhile, the very companies that would define the next two decades—Amazon, Apple, Microsoft—were sitting there marked down 75%. You didn't need to be a genius to buy them. You just needed the stomach. Then there was 2009–2011. Real estate was radioactive. The media made it sound like apartment buildings were going to fall into sinkholes. But if you bought during that window? Values didn't take ten years to recover. They snapped back within three. And then they kept running for another decade. And remember 2020—oil going negative? That's the kind of insanity that only happens once in a generation. People were literally joking that Exxon would pay you to take barrels off their hands. It was absurd… and it was the greatest energy buying opportunity in modern history. But most people sat on the sidelines in fear. Different cycles, different assets, same principle: If you want outsized returns, you have to be willing to buy what everyone else is mispricing. And right now, the only major asset class not making all-time highs is real estate. In fact, our Investor Club is still finding deals discounted 30–40 percent from just a few years ago. Apartments, specifically, are in this bizarre sweet spot where pricing is still beaten up from the rate shock, yet the fundamentals underneath are quietly strengthening. Sellers who bought with floating debt are fatigued. Buyers with dry powder are getting real discounts. Construction has collapsed—meaning supply will be razor-thin in 18–24 months. And the interest-rate environment is shifting in exactly the direction apartments benefit from. This is why rates matter. This is why liquidity matters. This is why cycles matter. When financing costs come down and supply is constrained, prices don't grind higher—they launch. This Is Exactly What the Bottom Feels Like Bottoms never feel like bottoms. They feel confusing. Uneasy. Contradictory. And that is precisely why it's the opportunity. Every big wealth-building moment looks like this in real time. Everyone's distracted by what's hot while the discount sits in plain sight. Make no mistake—if the Fed keeps cutting and liquidity continues loosening, apartments aren't going to stay discounted. They'll do what they did after 2009. They'll do what oil did after 2020. They'll do what tech did after the dot-com crash. They'll reprice fast. And years from now, people will look back at this exact moment and say the thing they always say after missing the obvious: "It was right there. Why didn't I buy more?" Well… it is right here. Apartments are on sale. No one has been beating the drum more on this than my guest on Wealth Formula Podcast this week.

This week's Wealth Formula Podcast is about the economics of sports—if you are a sports fan like me, you will love it. But before we get to that, I want to give you my two cents on one of the most important elements to financial success in anything: conviction. As I write this, Bitcoin sold off from a high of $126K to under $90K. Other cryptos have lost 50-90 percent of their value in the same time. It's been called a blood bath. Some are even saying it's over for Bitcoin. I might even believe them if I hadn't seen the same story at least 5 times before over the past decade. True bitcoiners have tremendous belief in what bitcoin means to the world. Someone who bought $1,000 of Bitcoin in 2010 and simply refused to sell would now be sitting on hundreds of millions of dollars. That is the reward for true conviction. The irony of this bitcoin cycle is that many of those individuals with high conviction are finally cashing in on the fruit of their patience. Almost every day, another wallet that hasn't been active since 2011 is selling off a billion dollars into the market into the hands of Wall Street and governments. That's why prices are tumbling. But don't be fooled into thinking that these buyers are the dumb money holding the bag. The story does not end here. Nor is the Bitcoin story a one-off either. History repeats itself as the story of investments unfolds over time. In December 1999, Amazon stock traded at $106. After the dot-com crash, it fell to $5.97. Every talking head had a eulogy written for the company. But if you were crazy enough to hold through the storm, your conviction paid off spectacularly: $10,000 invested in Amazon in 2001 is worth over $20 million today. Now, moving on to the topics of sports. One of my favorite examples of conviction is from 1920, when George Halas bought the Chicago Bears franchise for $100. The Halas family could've "taken profits" countless times. They lived through multiple depressions, a world war, a dozen recessions, five or six league restructurings, labor disputes, player strikes, and decades of bad seasons. Anybody else would've bailed. But they didn't, and today, the Chicago Bears are valued at over $6.3 billion. These stories have different time periods and different industries, but they all teach the same lesson: Conviction is one of the most profitable assets you can own. That's the message I want to leave you before we move into a perhaps more entertaining topic: the economics of professional sports. Most people think of sports in terms of touchdowns, rivalries, and Super Bowl rings. But the truth is… professional sports is one of the greatest wealth-creation machines in American history. Few people understand those engines better than our guest this week. He's one of the clearest, most respected voices in sports economics today, and he's going to break it all down for us: salary caps, streaming deals, and team valuations. If you are a sports fan, you are going to love this week's episode of Wealth Formula Podcast!

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.

I grew up with a very different perspective on personal finance and investing than most. My parents were immigrants, and when they arrived in this country, they didn't come with any preconceived notions of conventional financial wisdom. My father grew up dirt poor in India—that's really poor and he had never even heard of investing as a kid. But he was blessed with a tremendous intellect and used it to rise from nothing to truly live the American dream. He came to the U.S. in the 1960s on an engineering scholarship and started working as a bridge engineer in Minnesota. When he finally began making a little money, he was confronted with the idea of investing for the first time. Until then, life had always been hand-to-mouth. So he was approaching investing like an alien coming to this planet for the first time with an unbiased view on anything financial. With that perspective, the stock market didn't make sense to him. He wanted cash flow that would immediately improve his quality of life. Intuitively, it felt smarter to buy "streams of cash" than to "gamble" on stocks. So with whatever money he could scrape together, he bought small rental properties. Nothing glamorous—mostly low-income houses and duplexes in Minneapolis. But guess what? It worked. Before long, he started making real money and quit engineering altogether. The apple didn't fall far from the tree, I guess. Years later, I would also walk away from my career as a doctor to become a full-time investor. My father did really well. By the 1980s, he was having million-dollar years—that's a lot now, but back then it was a lot more! But then came the '90s. Like many others in the dot-com era, he got in over his skis. It seemed like everyone was making easy money in the stock market, and he got greedy. Unfortunately, he sold a large chunk of his real estate portfolio and went all in on tech. And of course, we all know how that story ended—the bubble burst and so did his brokerage account. So there he was, in his 50s, starting over again after being obliterated by the dotcom bubble. He was terrified. But he knew what he had to do. He had to rebuild the same way he had built wealth the first time: cash-flowing real estate. Today, in his 80s, he's still at it. To be clear, his real estate career wasn't all smooth sailing either. This isn't a fairy tale. It's real life. For example, in the late '90s, Alan Greenspan suddenly cranked up interest rates, creating a situation not unlike what investors faced post-COVID when the Fed raised rates at record speed. That hurt him, but each setback brought lessons, and he kept moving forward with an asset class that he trusted. Eventually, he recovered. We were always comfortable, and my dad made enough to pay for 3 kids' college tuition and medical school for me while still living comfortably, traveling, and enjoying his life. He'll be the first one to tell you that he only ever made money in real estate and that's what he believes in. Now, why am I telling you all this? I'm telling you this story because it shaped the way I see investing. Unlike most, I grew up hearing that the stock market was risky and that real estate was the safer, smarter path—pretty much the opposite of what everyone around me grew up with. And despite my own challenges from the post-COVID rate hikes, I can still say without hesitation that focusing on real estate has served me better than following the traditional investing playbook. Still, no one wins all the time. Every investor loses money sometimes. Surgeons have a saying: "If you haven't had a complication, you haven't done enough surgery." That's as true for the best surgeons in the world as it is for the best investors. So what do you do? Sitting on cash guarantees you'll lose purchasing power to inflation. Money markets barely keep up. For me, the answer is to keep investing with discipline. Real estate is my medium, and like my father, I learn from my mistakes and keep moving forward. I still see it as the greatest wealth-building asset in the world—just look at how many billionaire real estate investors there are. But wealth doesn't build blindly. Every project I invest in has to have underwriting I believe in. Beyond that, I pay close attention to macroeconomic shifts and form my own view on what comes next. Right now, I believe in the right markets, real estate has bottomed out. I think we're on the buyer's side of the cycle. I also believe interest rates are headed lower—both because the Fed has signaled it and because the Trump administration will do everything possible to keep them moving in that direction. And for real estate investors, investing in a descending interest rate environment is nothing short of a gift. So now I look at the deals in the right market. That involves underwriting and understanding what all those numbers mean. In this week's episode of Wealth Formula Podcast, my guest and I break down how you—even as a passive investor—can do your own due diligence.

This week's Wealth Formula Podcast features an interview with a tax attorney. While I'm not a tax professional myself, I want to drill down on something we touched on briefly that is incredibly relevant to many of you: the so-called short-term rental loophole. If I were a high-earning W-2 wage earner, this would be at the top of my list to implement—and I know many of you are already doing it. The short-term rental loophole is one of those quirks in the tax code that most people don't even know exists, but once you do, it can be a total game-changer. Here's why. Normally, when you buy a rental property, depreciation losses can't offset your W-2 income. They're considered passive, and they stay stuck in that bucket. But short-term rentals—Airbnb, VRBO, whatever—work differently. If the average stay is seven days or less and you materially participate, the IRS doesn't classify it as passive. It becomes an active business. That means the paper losses you generate can offset your ordinary income, even from your day job. Normally, you'd need a real estate professional status to get that benefit. This is the one situation where you don't. So let's walk through how it works. When you buy a residential property, the IRS requires you to depreciate the structure—the walls, roof, foundation—over 27½ years. On a million-dollar property, that's about $36,000 a year. It's a slow drip. A cost segregation study changes that. Instead of treating the property as one block of concrete and wood, it carves out the parts that don't last 27 years. Furniture, carpet, appliances, cabinets, and even ceiling fans—those are considered 5-year property. In other words, you can depreciate them much faster. Now add bonus depreciation. Instead of spreading those 5-year assets out over five years, the current rules let you write off most of them all at once in year one. Here's the example. You buy a $1,000,000 short-term rental and finance it at 70 percent loan-to-value. That means you put in $300,000 cash and borrow $700,000. A cost seg often shows about 30 percent of the property—roughly $300,000—is 5-year personal property. Thanks to bonus depreciation, you deduct that entire $300,000 immediately. So you put in $300,000 cash, and you got a $300,000 paper loss in the same year. In practical terms, you just deducted your entire down payment against your taxable income. This is what real estate professionals do all the time and why they often end up with no tax liability at all. In this case, it works for you as a W2 wage earner. And for that reason, I think its one of the most powerful tools out there for high paid professionals that is grossly underutilized. Remember, the biggest expense for most people is the amount of tax they pay—especially W2 wage earners. This strategy lets you use money you would otherwise pay the IRS to build a cash-flowing asset for yourself. Listen to this week's Wealth Formula Podcast to learn other ways to legally pay less tax!

Bitcoin is definitely volatile. If you told me it was going to go down by 50 percent next year, I would hesitantly believe you. However, there is no way you can convince me that Bitcoin will not hit $500,000 at some point within the next five years. Think about what's happening: ETFs are everywhere, treasury companies are holding Bitcoin, there are rumors of central banks buying it, and even an American Bitcoin reserve. It is an asset that will go up. But it may go down before that, and that is unnerving. You should not put money into Bitcoin unless you commit to not touching it for 5–10 years. But then you face another problem—Bitcoin is like gold. Unlike apartment buildings, there is no rent, no cashflow. Other coins like Ethereum and Solana have mechanisms called staking that allow for yield. Bitcoin does not. Its beauty is that there are not a lot of moving parts. It's a vault of security, and that's pretty much it. Again, just like gold. There have been companies like BlockFi and Celsius—which are, indeed, traditional finance companies—that lost people's Bitcoin when they went insolvent. But now there may be a way to get yield from Bitcoin while keeping it in your custody. That's what we talk about on this week's Wealth Formula Podcast, in addition to covering recent news and making predictions about Bitcoin's price.

It's been a while since I've talked about Wealth Formula Banking in detail, and I know we have a lot of new listeners who may not have heard about it yet. So today, I want to share a webinar that explains why I think this strategy is such a no-brainer. First off—what is Wealth Formula Banking? You may have heard of something called "infinite banking." It's a similar concept, but instead of focusing on paying your bills, Wealth Formula Banking is specifically designed to amplify your investments. My introduction to this idea came the same way you're hearing it now—through a podcast. I kept hearing the phrase "be your own bank." Honestly, I didn't know what that meant, and I tuned it out until a friend finally broke it down for me. That's when I had my aha moment. Here's why. Normally, when you want to invest in a cash-flowing asset, you park money in a checking or savings account first. The problem? Those accounts pay you almost nothing—well under 1 percent. Meanwhile, inflation is running at 2–3 percent, so you're guaranteed to lose money. That's why my friend Robert Kiyosaki always says, "savers are losers." Wealth Formula Banking flips that script. You're essentially creating a special kind of cash value life insurance policy, where the money you put in grows at a virtually bulletproof 5–6 percent compounding rate per year. Not that sexy on its own, BUT…here's the kicker: you don't have to pull that money out to invest in your deal. Instead, you borrow against it from the insurance company's general ledger at a simple interest rate. That means your original money keeps compounding inside the policy at 5–6 percent—even while you've borrowed against it to invest in cash-flowing assets like real estate. That's the key. With a HELOC, when you borrow, your money stops working for you. With Wealth Formula Banking, your money never stops growing. So now you've got the same dollars doing two jobs at once: earning safe, compounding growth inside your policy and generating income from your investments outside of it. By simply routing your money through Wealth Formula Banking, you're supercharging your returns. And here's what makes it even more powerful: tax-free growth within the insurance account, real asset protection to shield your wealth from lawsuits and creditors. Plus, it includes a permanent death benefit, which means that in addition to building wealth today, you're also creating a lasting legacy for your family tomorrow. It's not magic—it's math. And it's the kind of smart arbitrage that can turn ordinary investments into extraordinary ones. Schedule a FREE consultation: https://wealthformulabanking.com/

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! Learn more about Annie Duke: https://linktr.ee/annieduke

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.

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.

Something big is happening in Washington right now, and it has the potential to reshape everything you and I do as investors. A few weeks ago, the Trump administration attempted to remove Fed Governor Lisa Cook, only to have an appeals court block the move on legal grounds. At almost the same time, Stephen Miran—one of Trump's economic advisers—was confirmed by the Senate to the Fed's Board of Governors by a razor-thin margin. On one side, an attempted subtraction. On the other, a confirmed addition. All of this is happening right before a major policy meeting, and it's not hard to see the writing on the wall. Trump's takeover of the Fed is not a question of if—it's a question of when. Whether it unfolds in a matter of weeks or drags out over the next few months, the direction is set and the outcome is inevitable. The endgame is to bring interest rates down and, if necessary, use quantitative easing to drive bond yields even lower. That kind of policy would flood the system with liquidity, and the immediate effect would be a booming economy. Asset prices would rip higher—stocks, real estate, gold, Bitcoin—you name it. If you own assets, you'd feel wealthier almost overnight. But of course, there's another side to this coin. A dollar that weakens under the weight of easy money. A gap between the asset-rich and the asset-poor that grows even wider. Rising inequality, rising tensions, and perhaps a long-term cost to the credibility of the U.S. financial system. So is this takeover of the Fed a good thing? That depends entirely on where you sit. If you're a wage earner with no meaningful assets, it's bad news. If you're an investor, it's a reminder that ignoring policy shifts like this is done at your own peril. The time to prepare is now, not later. Don't wait for rates to drop before acting. History shows that buying assets in a descending rate environment has been one of the most powerful wealth-creation maneuvers in the United States. Think back to 2008. The Fed responded to the financial crisis with unprecedented rate cuts and waves of quantitative easing. What followed was more than a decade of explosive gains in stocks, real estate, and other assets. Those who bought while rates were falling built extraordinary wealth. Those who stood on the sidelines missed out. But don't take my word. Listen to noted economist Richard Duncan explain the dynamics of this situation in this week's episode of Wealth Forula Podcast. Learn more about Richard Duncan: https://richardduncaneconomics.com/

When we think about investing, our minds usually go straight to stocks, bonds, and real estate. But some of the best opportunities come when you stop thinking of investing as something separate from your everyday life. What do I mean by this? A lot of the things we buy are treated as expenses when they could be investments. You might wear a watch or jewelry simply because you like them, but you avoid spending too much because it feels frivolous. Yet what's better—paying $250 for a decent watch that will be worthless in 10 years, or $5,000 for a Rolex that could be worth twice as much over the same period? The same idea applies to cars and even furniture. I have a good friend who lives by this philosophy. For decades, he's chosen to invest in the finer things rather than the ordinary, and it has become a cornerstone of his personal investment strategy. It's about thinking differently—turning what most people see as expenses into assets. Art falls into that same category. I'm not a huge art guy myself. Sometimes I'll buy a piece off the street because I've never thought of art as an investment. Yet for centuries, people have purchased art for its beauty, cultural value, and emotional impact—and often made a financial killing in the process. Today, art is recognized as a legitimate asset class—something that not only enriches your life on the wall but also diversifies and strengthens your portfolio. This week on Wealth Formula Podcast, we're going to explore how fine art has evolved into an investment category in its own right, and how you might think about incorporating it into your wealth strategy. Learn more about Philip Hoffman and The Fine Art Group: https://www.fineartgroup.com/

We all know technology and geopolitics shape the world, but there's a quieter, less obvious force that dictates the flow of wealth and opportunity: demographics. Where people live, where they move, and how populations grow or shrink — these are the currents that ultimately drive economic gravity. That's why all of the multifamily investments you see through Investor Club focus on areas where there is job creation. Where there is job creation, there is population growth, and people have to live somewhere. Scale that concept up to a global level, and you start to see why migration, climate, and demographics are the real megatrends of the century. Take China — decades of the one-child policy have created a demographic cliff. Contrast that with parts of Africa and South Asia, where populations are booming. Add to this the wildcard of AI, which could either amplify the advantages of youthful nations or offset aging ones. For investors, entrepreneurs, and anyone thinking long term, the key isn't where the puck is today — it's where the puck is going. That's the topic of this week's Wealth Formula Podcast.

One of the realities of building wealth is that the more you have, the more you have to lose. Asset protection and estate planning aren't just legal technicalities—they're essential parts of safeguarding everything you've worked for. The worst time to plan is when you actually need it. If you wait until you're facing a lawsuit, a creditor, or a sudden death in the family, it's already too late. Think of asset protection like insurance. Most of us wouldn't drive without auto insurance or own a home without homeowners' insurance. Yet many wealthy people operate businesses, hold investments, and build family wealth without putting legal structures in place to shield those assets. One lawsuit or one major life event can undo decades of hard work. On the estate side, not having a proper plan doesn't just cost money—it creates stress and hardship for your loved ones. Without a solid estate plan, your family could end up tied up in probate courts, fighting over assets, and losing valuable time and resources. We've talked on this show before about basic steps everyone should take—like forming entities to protect your business or making sure you have not only a will, but also a living trust. Those are the starting points. But as your wealth continues to grow, your planning needs to grow with it. High-net-worth families have to think about more robust strategies—things like dynasty trusts, asset protection trusts, and the best jurisdictions to set them up. These aren't just technical details. They're the difference between wealth that gets preserved and multiplies across generations and wealth that gets chipped away by taxes, lawsuits, and poor planning. To help us understand these tools at the highest level, I've invited perhaps the most respected attorney in this space—someone who is seen by other attorneys as the thought leader in asset protection and estate planning—Steve Oshins. Steve has pioneered strategies that are now industry standards, and his work has shaped how families across the country protect and grow their wealth. You're going to want to pay attention this conversation closely.

I'm not a big stock guy. However, there are some companies out there that you know are just going to change the world, and it would be nice to be able to own part of them—especially before they go public. That's why this week on Wealth Formula Podcast we're diving into a topic that's been on my mind for quite some time: the world of pre-IPO investing. If you've ever felt like by the time a company finally hits the public market it's already ballooned in value and you're basically buying in at a premium, you're not alone. I personally had my eye on a company called Circle, which deals in stablecoins. As I've talked about on the show before, I think it's going to be huge globally. But as soon as Circle went public, the valuation shot up to a point where I felt like it was way too expensive to jump in. If I had access to those shares before the IPO, I would have definitely taken the plunge. Now, this isn't just about one company. We've seen this story play out with others, and right now there are some major game-changers like SpaceX on the horizon. SpaceX, one of Elon Musk's ventures, is one of those companies you just know is going to have a massive impact. But how do you get access to those deals? If you're an accredited investor, I have good news. Getting a piece of the action before these companies go public isn't just for the ultra-wealthy insiders anymore. It's becoming more accessible to accredited investors who want to get in earlier and potentially see greater upside. That's the topic of this week's Wealth Formula Podcast. Securities offered through Old City Securities, LLC. This discussion is for informational purposes only and does not constitute an affiliation with or endorsement of any company, and does not constitute a recommendation, offer to sell, or solicitation of an offer to buy, any securities. Investments in private companies are offered only through appropriate offering materials and accreditation requirements apply as defined under SEC Regulation D. Investments in private companies involve high risk, including the risk of complete loss of capital. These investments are illiquid, through a variety of structures including SPVs, may be difficult or impossible to resell, and may not ever result in an IPO or other liquidity event. Past performance is not indicative of future results. The speaker may receive compensation in connection with certain transactions discussed. There is no guarantee these private companies will achieve any specific valuation, and returns can vary widely and may underperform public markets. They may also involve additional risks not present in public market investments. Connect With Christine: https://healeypreipo.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/christine-healey/ YouTube: christinehealeypreipo

Bitcoin may be breaking records again, but this time it's not because of retail frenzy. Search trends, social media chatter, and small-investor activity are all far quieter than they were in 2017 or 2021. The people driving this move aren't hobby traders—they're the biggest institutions and the wealthiest investors on the planet. Look at BlackRock. Larry Fink once dismissed Bitcoin as an "index of money laundering." Now he's calling it "digital gold," and his firm's iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) has become the fastest-growing ETF in history. It's pulled in nearly $90 billion, representing more than 3% of all the Bitcoin that will ever exist. Those billions aren't coming from TikTok influencers—they're coming from pensions, hedge funds, and the kind of family offices that have multi-generational plans for capital preservation and growth. Even Harvard University has made the leap. Back in 2018, its star economist Kenneth Rogoff said Bitcoin was more likely to hit $100 than $100,000. Today, Harvard's endowment owns more of BlackRock's IBIT than it does Apple stock in its U.S. equity portfolio. That's not just a change of heart—it's a complete reversal in worldview. And of course, there's Michael Saylor, whose MicroStrategy now holds close to 3% of the total future Bitcoin supply, turning a business software company into a corporate Bitcoin vault. This is institutional FOMO. The biggest asset manager on Earth is selling it, elite universities are holding it, corporate treasuries are betting their future on it, and family offices are adding it to the same portfolios that hold their blue-chip stocks and trophy real estate. But institutions aren't the only ones making this move. There's another wave—quieter but just as significant—coming from the ultra-high-net-worth crowd. The centimillionaires. The people who can wire $10 million into a position without blinking. I've always said: never take financial advice from someone with less money than you. Well, Gary Cardone has a lot more than me—and he's all in on Bitcoin. Gary is part of what they call "smart money." He's in the same camp as the other ultra-wealthy who aren't just dabbling in crypto—they're making conviction bets. And when you see people with that kind of capital and that kind of access all moving in the same direction, it's worth listening to why. That's exactly why I sat down with him—to hear, straight from someone in that rarefied circle, why Bitcoin has gone from a curiosity to a core holding.