Wealth Formula by Buck Joffrey

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

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

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. Transcript Disclaimer: This transcript was generated by AI and may not be 100% accurate. If you notice any errors or corrections, please email us at phil@wealthformula.com.  I'm a numbers guy. I always say you have to run the numbers if you're gonna make any sense out of out of a deal. But I also tried to emphasize very, very strongly that you had to look not only at the numbers, but beyond the numbers. Welcome everybody. This is Buck Joffrey with the Wealth Formula Podcast coming to you from Montecito, California reminding you that there is a website associated with this podcast called wealth formula.com. That is where you go to take advantage some of the resources of wealth formula that are not on this podcast, for example, uh, an opportunity to join the Accredited Investor Club. Um, I highly encourage you to do that, especially towards the end of the year here. Lots of tax mitigating investments coming through. Now, these are all private investments and they are limited to accredited investors. Now, an accredited investor is not something that you have to apply for. It's something that you are or you are not. It depends on. Your financial situation. If you make, uh, $200,000 per year for two years in a row with reasonable expectation of continuing to do so, you are a credit investor. If you're filing jointly, that number goes to 300,000. The other category is, of course, simply having that worth of a million dollars outside of your personal residence. If you meet those requirements, congratulations, you're an a credit investor and you can sign up for investor club at wealthformula.com. And it's free to join and basically gives you an opportunity to see private deal flow that you are not going to see anywhere else. So go to wealth formula.com and join Investor Club. Now I wanna tell you a story, okay? Uh, I wanna tell you a story. I grew up, uh, with a very different perspective on personal finance. Uh. Investing than most. And, um, uh, some of you know, my parents, uh, were immigrants, uh, and they arrived in this country without any preconceived notions of conventional financial wisdom. Why? Well, I. My father, uh, grew up dirt poor in India, and, uh, some of you might know that, that that's really poor. That's, that's very poor. Uh, so he never even had that concept or even heard the word investing as a kid. The one thing he was was he was blessed with a tremendous intellect, very, very smart guy. Got himself through, um, you know, high school and college by tutoring, that kind of thing, um, you know, top of his class, uh, and finally used that to come to the United States. And honestly, he truly did rise from the ashes to live, uh, the American dream. So. That was in 1960s. Uh, he came to the US in the sixties, uh, on an engineering scholarship and started working as a bridge engineer in Minnesota after he got his master's degree. And when he finally, uh, began making a little bit of money, he was confronted with the idea of investing for the first time. You see, again, until then, life had always been hand to mouth. He was approaching investing like an alien coming to this planet for the first time with an unbiased view on anything financial. And with that perspective, the stock market itself didn't really make sense to him. You know, to him it looked a little bit like a casino. It looked like you put money in, then it might go up, it might not, you know, it might go down. What he really wanted was cash flow. That would immediately improve his quality of life. So with whatever money he could scrape together, he bought small rental properties, nothing glamorous, low income, you know, single family homes, duplexes in Minneapolis where he was so. Guess what? It worked and before long, he started making real money and quit engineering altogether. The real story there is not that he quit, but that his boss found him doing, spending too much time on real estate, uh, and decided that maybe he ought to find, uh, another, uh, job or maybe just go into real estate altogether, which he did. Okay, so. That story's funny because the apple didn't fall far from the tree, I guess, uh, years later. Um, I would also walk away from my career as a physician and become a full-time investor back to my father. He did really well, right back in the eighties. He was having, he was having some years where he was making a million dollars a year, and you know, that's a lot now. Back then, that was a lot more money. And that was a million, making a million dollars in the eighties. That was, that was, you really had to do well. But then came the nineties and like many others in the.com era, he got in over his skis. You see, the thing is he looked around and everyone was making easy money. Everyone was making money in the stock market and he got greedy. So unfortunately he sold. A large chunk,

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! Transcript Disclaimer: This transcript was generated by AI and may not be 100% accurate. If you notice any errors or corrections, please email us at phil@wealthformula.com.  In general, W2 income is hard to defer and you can do things when you're self-employed or when you have a company or when you have stock gains or investment gains, real estate, those kinds of things. But I think wages, I think you're pretty much stuck with. Welcome everybody. This is Buck Joffrey with the Wealth Formula Podcast coming to you from Montecito, California today. Before we begin, I wanna remind you that there is a website associated with this podcast called wealth formula.com. Go check it out. And, uh, one of the things on there that I wanna draw your attention to is the, uh, accredited investor club, otherwise just known as. Investor club. Uh, this is where if you qualify as an accredit investor, basically that is not something you apply for, but you either are or you are not. If you make $300,000 per year or more filing, uh, jointly, or you have a million dollars of net worth outside of your personal residence, you are an accredited investor, you just didn't know it, and, uh, who doesn't want to join a club. So go to wealth formula.com, join investor club. Now today's, uh, podcast is going to be a conversation with a tax attorney. And, uh, while I'm not a tax professional myself, I do want to drill down on something that we touched on in this conversation briefly, but probably should go into a little bit more because I think it's so relevant for this audience. And it's called the short term rental loophole. You may have heard me talking about this before, but you know, if I were a hiring W2 wage earner. This would be really at the top of my list to implement, and I know many of you are already using it. I've, I've talked to some of you who have used it after, during me talk about, which are good for you. Um, the short term rental loophole is, it's really one of those quirks in the tax code that most people don't even know exists. Uh, but once you do, uh, it can be a pretty significant game changer for you and here's why. Okay. So if you're a W2 wage earner, usually when you buy a rental property, all that good tax benefit, a lot of it depreciation, uh, depreciation losses in particular, they can't be offset by your W2 income. They're considered passive and they get stuck in that bucket. But short-term rentals, we're talking, you know, the Airbnbs VRBO, whatever. They work differently if, if the average stay is seven days or less, and you can, uh, show that you material materially participate. The IRS doesn't classify it as passive. It becomes an active business, and that means the paper losses you generate can offset your ordinary income even from your day job. Now, normally you would need real estate professional status to get that benefit. This is one of those situations where you don't, so let's walk through how it works. And by the way, you know, I keep calling a loophole. This is, this is black and white tax law. This is, you know, they call it the loophole. I don't even know why people call it the loophole, but the reality is that it's not it. You follow this law. It is black and white in the code, but here's how it works. Okay? You buy a residential property. Usually, you know, uh, you get depreciation, right? The IRS requires you to depreciate the structure on paper, the wall, the roof, the foundation, and typically that's over 27 and a half years. So on a million dollar property, that's about $36,000 a year. It's, uh, you know, it's, it's, it's real money. It's a, but it's a little bit of a slow drip and. You know, normally on investment property, you can't use that as a W2 wage earner anyway. Now let's get back to that 27 and a half years in a million, uh, dollar thing. So there's something called a cost segregation study that we've talked about again on this show that changes that. And so instead of treating the property as one block of concrete and wood, a cost segregation study basically carves out the parts that don't last. For 27 years. And namely, those are things like furniture, carpet, appliances, cabinets, even ceiling fans. Those are considered personal property and are depreciated typically over five years. In other words, you can depreciate them much faster. Now that's where bonus depreciation comes in. The, you know, the Trump uh, uh, laws now are allowed that five year. Uh, the stuff that's depreciated over the five years to be taken all at once in the first year. So here's the example. I think maybe that'll help to put all this together. So you buy a million dollar short-term rental, and typically, of course, you're gonna finance that. And let's say it's a 70% loan to value type situation. So you're putting down 30%, you're putting down $300,000 cash, you borrow $700,000. Now a cost segregation study. My experience, having done it many, many times shows approximately 30% of the property, roughly $300,000 in this case as personal property. Okay? That's not gonna be the same every time, but I, it seems to come out to about that amount frequently. So thanks to bonus depreciation, that $300,000 that you put down is a down payment. You deduct that entire $300,000 immediately from your taxable income. Again, let's repeat that a little bit so it's very clear. You put down 30% to acquire this million dollar property. The cost segregation comes out in such a way that you basically get $300,000 of depreciation. So effectively you're writing it all off. I mean, it's, it's magical. Okay? $300,000 cash, you get $300,000 pay per loss in the same year. So in practical terms, again, you just deducted your entire down payment against your taxable income, and this is what real estate professionals do all the time and why you often hear that they end up having almost zero tax liability at all. In this case though, with this so-called loophole. It works for you as a W2 wage earner. And for that reason, I think it's one of the most powerful tools out there for high paid professionals. And I will say, I think it's grossly underutilized. I think a lot of people don't even know about it. Now, remember, the biggest expense for most people in the is the amount of tax they pay, you know, and that is definitely the case for apec, you know, for W2 wage earners, it may not be for for real estate professionals, but it is for W2 wage earners. What this strategy is allowing you to do is to use money that you'd otherwise pay the IRS to build a cash flowing asset for yourself. Anyway, I wanted to drill down on that because I think it's really a really powerful tool. I think people should consider it. Now, for today's show, we're gonna talk to a tax attorney who is going to give us a. A little bit more advice on, you know, legal ways to reduce our taxes.

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. Transcript Disclaimer: This transcript was generated by AI and may not be 100% accurate. If you notice any errors or corrections, please email us at phil@wealthformula.com.  When you're time locking your Bitcoin, it's fully self custodial, so you're never giving up those keys at any point, and that's what's so critical. Welcome everybody. This is Buck Joffrey, the Wealth Formula podcast. Coming to you from Montecito, California today. Before we begin, I wanna remind you there is a website associated with this podcast. It is called wealth formula.com. Lots of resources there, including the opportunity to join our accredited investor club. Uh, take the opportunity if you, um, are, you know, if you do make over $300,000 per year and, um. And, uh, have a net worth over a million dollars outside of your personal residence to join the club. It's free to join and it basically just allows you to see deal flow. That's pretty much it. That deal flow is not seen outside of, uh, the network because, uh, it's private. Private placements you've probably heard of. Right? So anyway, go to wealth formula.com, sign up for investor Club today we're gonna talk. About Bitcoin. Again, I know a lot of you still probably are seeing on the sidelines with this lately. The, uh, the price of Bitcoin has been extremely volatile. Well, it's not volatile compared to what it historically has been, but it's been volatile. But listen, I will say this, um, if you told me Bitcoin was going down by 50% next year. I would hesitantly believe you. Okay. But there is no way that you can convince me that Bitcoin will not at some point be worth $500,000 per Bitcoin at some point within the next five years. I mean, that could happen in two years, and then you could end up coming back. To a hundred thousand dollars. But I, I'm, I'm convinced that it ends up there. I mean, think about what's happening. ETFs everywhere, treasury companies holding Bitcoin, rumors of central banks buying it. An American Bitcoin reserve is on the table. It's already exists. It's just are they gonna actively buy it or they just going to confiscate it and hold it. Um, now that being said, you know. The volatility is a real thing. And so what I, I think is really important is that you should not put money into Bitcoin unless you commit to it for five to 10 years. Just buy it and forget it. Don't look at the price. Don't look at the price. I mean, what I will say is, you know, say a couple years down the line, if all of a sudden you're hearing people talking about how Bitcoin went crazy and it's, you know, worth a million bucks or something like that, then yeah, it out sell it. But. You know, volatility is a real thing here. It is not, uh, something you want for money that you need tomorrow. Okay? Now with that Bitcoin, you face one other problem. It's kind of, see Bitcoin is kinda like gold, right? Unlike apartment buildings and stuff that we do in a credit investor club or investor club, there's no cash flow, right? Um, other coins like Ethereum of in Solana do have mechanisms. Are called staking that allow for yield, but Bitcoin does not because in fact, it's, it's beauty in, in many ways, in the way it's designed is there's not a lot of moving parts. It's a vault of security and that's pretty much it. Right. And that's why it's like gold. I know some of you're thinking, oh yeah. Well there are some ways, uh, the, you know, you can get yield. There are companies, and you're right. Whereas companies like Block Fi and Celsius. Um, for traditional finance companies, I think BFI is out of business, I think Celsius as well, basically because when Bitcoin went, uh, way down, they basically, uh, you know, the, the companies folded and a lot of people lost Bitcoin in those situations. In fact, with bfi, um. I, yeah, long story, but I lost, I lost a decent chunk there too when that happened. Now, in those cases with these, you know, centralized, uh, traditional finance companies offering yield on Bitcoin, the big thing here was that they actually had custody of your Bitcoin. If you have custody of your Bitcoin, you can't lose your Bitcoin. Right? That's, uh, that's a really important part of this whole Bitcoin ecosystem. And as it turns out, there may actually be a, a way to get yield from Bitcoin while keeping it in your own custody, keeping it in your own wallet or whatever, right. Um, that's what we're gonna talk about this week on Wealth Formula Podcast. 'cause we have a guy who's, uh, creating that entire ecosystem. This is an, uh, og uh, rich Rines. He's a OG Bitcoin guy. And, uh, a lot of interesting stuff we talk about. So we talk about, um, initially the yield thing, which I think is important. A really useful thing, but then we go on to talk a lot about, you know, the other issues around Bitcoin right now. Again, if you are, uh, not involved with Bitcoin, I think it's important, you know, whether or not you buy it to be in the know, learn about this stuff. Um, and, um, this is a good way to do that. So when we come back, rich Rines wealth Formula banking is an ingenious concept powered by whole life insurance, but instead of acting just as a safety net, the strategy supercharges your investments. First, you create a personal financial reservoir that grows at a compounding interest rate much higher than any bank savings account. As your money accumulates, you borrow from your own bank to invest in other cash flowing investments. Here's the key, even though you've borrowed money at a simple interest rate. Your insurance company keeps paying you compound interest on that money even though you've borrowed it. Net result, you make money in two places at the same time. That's why your investments get supercharged. This isn't a new technique. It's a refined strategy used by some of the wealthiest families in history, and it uses century old rock solid insurance companies as its backbone. Turbocharge your investments. Visit Wealth formula banking.com. Again, that's wealth formula banking.com. Welcome back to the show everyone. Today my guest on Wealth Formula podcast is Rich RINs. He's a Bitcoin OG from the class of 2013 and one of the key architects behind the core blockchain. Uh, rich previously led the Money Movement engineering team at Coinbase, uh, helping to FCI facilitate over 1 trillion. Dollars in value transfers and now serves as founding contributor to Core Dow, uh, which is, uh, building a scalable self custodial yield layer for Bitcoin. He's also the CEO of Element wallet. Which integrate stable coins, encrypted messaging into core ecosystems. Uh, rich brings deep experience in both traditional finance mechanisms, uh, and mechanics, and, uh, blockchain innovation as well, making him perfect person to talk to about how Bitcoin is evolving into a yield bearing asset class. Uh, rich, thanks for joining the show. Thanks for having me. Really excited to chat here today. So let's start, uh, with the big picture when we talk about, um. You know, staking in crypto. My, my audience, uh, I think, you know, some people, I would say probably half are pretty crypto savvy by now 'cause I've been talking about it since 2017 as well. However, um, let's talk about staking and, you know, what does that actually mean and, and why has it been easy for some coins like Ethereum, Solana, but not really. So for Bick Bitcoin. Happy to, happy to unpack there. There's quite, quite a bit to unpack there. Um. So I think we take one step back and we kind of think about the origins of, of crypto, right? You, you had Bitcoin, which first came under the scene in 2008, 2009, and it was based on proof of work, right? And proof of work is solving cryptographic puzzles. When you solve those puzzles, you help secure the network. And we're all kind of familiar roughly with, with how Bitcoin works, energy, scarce, finite currency and, and you know, that was rhetoric genesis of this whole, of this whole movement. Somewhere, let's call it 2017, 2018 ish, you started to see a, a shift from people looking at proof of work and something. It's scalability limitations primarily because you do get a security benefit of proof of work that you do not get the same way with proof of stake. You get a different mechanism, but which is still secure, but not as secure. And there was this desire to move to a new, um, a new mechanism. And you saw Vitalik a lot of the folks in the Ethereum community really pushing this even earlier. We saw the first wave of, you know,

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

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

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

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: richardduncaneconomics.com Transcript Disclaimer: This transcript was generated by AI and may not be 100% accurate. If you notice any errors or corrections, please email us at phil@wealthformula.com. By devaluing the dollar by 50% against the end of the mark by 1990, the trade deficit that had come back into balance. Welcome everybody. This is Buck Joffrey with the Wealth Formula Podcast. Coming to you from Montecito, California. Uh, today before I begin, just a reminder. Go to wealth formula.com. If you haven't done so and you are an accredited investor, join the Accredited Investor club. Lots of things coming in there in Q4. Lots of tax mitigation, strategy related investments, that kind of thing take advantage a hundred percent. Bonus depreciation, take advantage of discounted assets and so on. So again, wealth formula.com. Now, uh, let's talk about today's show. Interesting one. Um, it's with, uh, Richard Duncan again. Uh, and, uh, he's an interesting guy, uh, and I wanted to talk to him because something big is happening in Washington right now, as you know, and it has the potential to reshape everything you and I do as investors. As you may know, and as I am sure you probably know, a few, a few weeks ago, Trump administration attempted to remove, uh, fed Governor Lisa Cook, only to have appeals. Courts block, uh, and, uh, uh, move block the move on legal grounds. And at almost the same time, Stephen Moran, one of Trump's economic advisors, was confirmed by the Senate to the Fed's Board of Governors, uh, and uh, on one side and attempted a subtraction on the other, a confirmed edition. All of this is happening right before a major policy meeting, which by the time you hear this is going to be. Uh, concluded, which is the, uh, announcement of either a 25 or 50, uh, basis. Point cut. Uh, you tell me because I'm doing this right before that meeting, uh, Trump's takeover of Fed is, you know, really not a question of if it's a question of when and how, and. Whether it unfolds in a matter of weeks or drags out over the few months, uh, the direction is set and the outcome really, in my view, is inevitable. Right? The end game. What is the end game? The end game is to bring interest rates down and if necessary, use quantitative easing to drive bond yields down as well. And that kind of policy. What would happen? It would basically flood the system with liquidity and immediate effect would be booming. To the economy, right? Asset prices would rip higher stocks, real estate, gold, Bitcoin, you name it. If you own assets, you will feel wealthier overnight. But of course, there's another side of this coin. Uh, you know, 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 the long-term cost of credibility of the US financial system. So the question is. You know what, this whole takeover thing, it sounds, you know, uh, it sounds sneaky, it sounds bad, and especially on the, if you listen to mainstream television, but is it such a bad thing, the takeover of, of the Fed? That depends entirely where you sit. If you're a wage earner with no meaningful assets, if you're poor, 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 because the time to prepare is now. Don't wait for rates to drop before acting. History shows that buying assets in a descending rate environment has one of the most powerful wealth creation maneuvers in the history of the United States. All you have to do is look back in 2008, the Fed responded to the financial crisis with unprecedented rate, cuts and waves of quantitative easing. And what followed was more than a decade of explosive gains in stocks, real estate, and other assets, which basically just ended. I mean, gosh, right? So those who bought while rates were falling, built extraordinary wealth, and those who stood on the sidelines missed out. And that is playing out in real time again, in my opinion. But don't take my words for it. Listen to Richard Duncan. Uh, he is clearly not a pro. If you've listened to him in the past, he calls balls and strikes, and if anything, he's been sort of not on board with the Trump administration, the plan, but listen to what he has to say about this. We'll have that interview right after these messages. Wealth Formula banking is an ingenious concept powered by whole life insurance, but instead of acting just as a safety net, the strategy supercharges your investments. First, you create a personal financial reservoir that grows at a compounding interest rate. Much higher than any bank savings account. As your money accumulates, you borrow from your own bank to invest in other cash flowing investments. Here's the key. Even though you've borrowed money at a simple interest rate, your insurance company keeps paying. You compound interest on that money even though you've borrowed it. Net result, you make money in two places at the same time. That's why your investments get supercharged. This isn't a new technique. It's a refined strategy used by some of the wealthiest families in history, and it uses century old rock solid insurance companies as its backbone. Turbocharge your investments. Visit Wealth formula banking.com. Again, that's wealth formula banking.com. Welcome back to the show everyone. Today. My guest on Wealth Formula podcast is Richard Duncan. He's been on the show, uh, several times before. He is an economist, an author known for his work on the global financial system and credit dynamics. He's the creator of Macro Watch, which is an online video newsletter analyzing economic developments and the author of several influential books, including The Dollar Crisis, the Corruption of Capitalism, and The New Depression. Uh, how you doing there? Uh, Richard. Great buck. Thanks for having me back on. Yeah. Nice to talk to you. You're in, uh, Thailand, right? That's right, that's right. Well, good to, good to uh, uh, connect. It's a sort of an unusual time. I think my time here is now 6:00 PM and, uh, it's what, eight 8:00 AM your time. Uh, so it's, it's, it's interesting how, uh, the business ever gets done between those two countries. But, um, anyway, um. It's hard during this podcast with the strange hours between gear and there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Well, let's talk about some of the things that you've been talking about. Uh, first topic, I think, um, that you've been sort of, uh, talking about is Will Trump and the Fed. And, um, so you have a video where you asked that question and you say that the, the Fed independence could become, uh, be coming to an end. Tell us what that really means. Tell us what the background is here. Well, yes. Let me do again with the background. Yeah, because we really are living in extraordinary times as far as developments in the US and the global economy go. President Trump is very serious about remaking the American economy. When he says, make America great again, he means it. And his plan to do that is to re industrialize the United States and to do that, he has a strategy. There's a very clear plan. In fact, this plan is laid out very clearly in a paper published by Steven Moran, who is the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors,

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: www.fineartgroup.com Transcript Disclaimer: This transcript was generated by AI and may not be 100% accurate. If you notice any errors or corrections, please email us at phil@wealthformula.com.  If you donate a hundred million dollars of art, you can probably get a tax rebate for the full amount of the donation. Welcome, everybody. This is Buck Joffrey with the Wealth Formula Podcast. Coming to you from Montecito, California. Uh, today before we begin, I wanna remind you again, there's, um, a website called wealth formula.com that you should check out. Um, one of the things on there is, uh, the ability to sign up for our accredited investor club now really do, um, suggest you check it out if you are an accredit investor and potentially get onboarded, uh, with our team. Uh, because as we enter into this fourth quarter here, we have a number of, uh, potentially interesting opportunities, um, that involve significant tax, uh, tax mitigating type investments. Usually using depreciation, whether that's, uh, related to, you know, apartment buildings, sometimes in commercial aircraft, things like that. But if you are an accredit investor, I think you should at least get onboarded so that you can check out the opportunities that are out there that are coming your way. This is, of course, a private group, so that. Um, you will not get access to these, uh, opportunities unless you are part of investor clubs. So go to wealth formula.com and sign up for our credit investor club if you, uh, if you are one. Uh, let's talk today a little bit about a shift, uh, in thinking. Uh, you know, we, when we think about investing, you know, of course we're usually going straight to. Whatever it is that we're typically thinking about, whether that's real estate, stocks, bonds, whatever. But some of the best opportunities come when you stop thinking about investing as something separate from your everyday life and you start thinking about the things that are in your everyday life. So what do I mean by all of this? Well, a lot of things, uh, we buy, um, are treated as expenses. When if you kind of shift your mindset a little bit, they could be thought of as investments rather than expenses. So here's an example that's kind of obvious, right? Many of you wear watches, many of you wear jewelry because you liked them, but you might also say to yourself, well, I like them, but I'm not gonna spend that much on it. Otherwise, it'd be frivolous. So. You, maybe you buy a, a nice watch for 250 bucks. Um, but here's the thing, what happens, uh, with a watch that's probably 250 bucks that you bought in the mall. It's probably gonna be worthless in about 10 years. Now, what if you actually paid like five grand for, you know, a Rolex? I might pay a little bit more than that, but let's say you paid $5,000 for a Rolex or some other brand that has notoriously increased in value, that's really hard to get your hands on. Um, well, in 10 years, that $5,000 Rolex or that $10,000 Rolex or whatever, it, it's probably gonna be worth more than when you bought it. At some point it will, if you look at the historical numbers on watches, for example, and various types of jewelry. That's just what happens when you buy the really nice stuff. The same idea applies to cars. Of course, you know, those of you who are car buffs, you know, that, um, you know, uh, you may, you may not, uh, you may not be looking for the most, uh, reliable whatever car you may be looking for something that you really want to drive that's, uh, kind of a classic car that you know is gonna go up in value. But you can even get that in things like furniture. I have a, I have a friend who lives by this philosophy and he's. You know, for decades, he's chosen to invest in the finer things, uh, rather than the ordinary, and has become, um, really a cornerstone of his personal investment strategy in some, you know, so it's really about thinking differently, turning what most people see as expenses into assets. So, you know, this particular interview we're gonna do today is about art. Art falls into that same category, you know, especially for those of you who love art. I'm not a huge art guy myself. Okay. Sometimes I'll buy a piece off the street because I've never, um, because I like it, you know? But I've never really thought of as an investment, and maybe this is not an area that I love enough to make part of my investments, right? But some of, some of you will. Um, you know, I mean, for centuries people have purchased art for beauty, cultural value and emotional impact, and then. As a side effect of that, they've often made, uh, they've made financial killings in the process. So, you know, today, um, art is recognized as a legitimate asset class, something that. Not only can enrich your life on the wall, but also diversifies and strengthens your portfolio. So that's what we're gonna talk about on this week's, uh, wealth Formula podcast. We're gonna explore how fine art has evolved into an investment category in its own right and how you might, uh, think about incorporating it into your personal wealth strategy. We'll have that interview right after these messages. Wealth Formula banking is an ingenious concept powered by whole life insurance, but instead of acting just as a safety net, the strategy supercharges your investments. First, you create a personal financial reservoir that grows at a compounding interest rate. Much higher than any bank savings account. As your money accumulates, you borrow from your own bank to invest in other cash flowing investments. Here's the key. Even though you've borrowed money at a simple interest rate, your insurance company keeps paying. You compound interest on that money even though you've borrowed it. Net result, you make money in two places at the same time. That's why your investments get supercharged. This isn't a new technique. It's a refined strategy used by some of the wealthiest families in history, and it uses century old rock solid insurance companies as its backbone. Turbocharge your investments. Visit Wealth formula banking.com. Again, that's wealth formula banking.com. Welcome back to the show everyone. Today my guest on Well, formula Podcast is Philip Hoffman. He's the founder and chairman of the Fine Art Group, a global leader in art investment advisory and finance. Philip spent years as an executive at Christie's before pioneering the first art investment fund, effectively creating a new asset class for investors. And today the fine art group oversees more than 20 billion in, um, advised assets across 28 countries. Philip, welcome to program. Lovely to be here. Welcome from Sunny Lee, the Alps. Very nice. It's, uh, very appropriate, I guess, for the art world to be coming from some nice places like that. Um, well, let's, let's get right into it. Uh, you know, you, you started, uh, uh, at Christie's, uh, and, uh. Then ended up, um, getting this situation in place where high income professionals can start thinking about, uh, art as an investment. What, tell us the story. What, how, how did that happen? So, I got into the art world completely by accident. I trained at KPM. And as a CPA and then by accident, got asked to be CFO of Christie's when I was 27. I was the youngest board director by about 20 years. Uh, I had no interest in joining Christie's 'cause I thought he was a antiquated company selling, uh, with, with old fashioned people selling Rembrandts a little did I know that there was one and a half thousand staff involved that, um, they were trying to sell Basquiat and. Picassos and Renoirs and, and, and everything from colored Damons to vintage motorcars. So it was a fascinating business to join when you are 27. And, uh, but I didn't wanna be CFO, I wanted to actually get my hands dirty and find out what the business is all about. And that was my first exploit, was to meet a client who had bought two pictures, one a can leto for about 50,000 pounds and a. Monet for around the same amount in 1976, and we went to the warehouse to look at it with my experts, and we recognized both were genuine and both, uh uh, what is it, 30 years later were worth.

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. Transcript Disclaimer: This transcript was generated by AI and may not be 100% accurate. If you notice any errors or corrections, please email us at phil@wealthformula.com.  If a place is attracting young people, it must be doing something right. Welcome everybody. This is Buck Joffrey with the Wealth Formula Podcast. Coming to you from Montecito, California. Before we begin, I wanna remind you that there is a website associated with this podcast is called wealth formula.com. Go there and uh, check out some of the resources we have, including the opportunity. To join our accredited investor club. Uh, this is a. A group, uh, for a credit investors to see a potential deal flow that you wouldn't see otherwise, uh, because they are private, uh, private nature. So the process is easy. If you are an accredit investor, go ahead and sign up and get onboarded. Then basically wait to see what kind of deals are out there and see if you're interested. Check it out. Wealth formula.com. Okay, so let's start. Uh, let's talk a little bit today about something that's really important, maybe not appreciated as much. You know, we know that technology and geopolitics shape the world, but there's a quieter, sort of less obvious force that dictates the flow of wealth and opportunities. And that is demographics, um, where people live, where they move, and how populations grow or shrink. These are the currents that ultimately drive economic gravity. And that's why all of the multifamily investment you see through say investor club, uh, focus on areas where there's job creation. Why? Because where there is job creation, there is population growth. And guess what? People have to live somewhere, right? So that's something that you might be familiar with already, but scale that concept up to a global level and you start to see why migration. Climate demographics, they're really the sort of mega trends of the century. All you have to do is take a look at China, right? Decades of one child policy have created essentially a demographic cliff for them. And you contrast that with parts of Africa and South Asia where populations are booming. And then you add to this, the wild card of ai, which could either amplify the advantages of youthful nations or, or potentially offset. Aging ones like China, as we mentioned. So for investors, entrepreneurs, and anyone really thinking long, uh, term, the key isn't necessarily where the Pak is today, as the Great Gretzky once said. It's where the puck is going, and that is the topic of this Week's Wealth Formula podcast, and we will have that for you right after these messages. Wealth Formula banking is an ingenious concept powered by whole life insurance, but instead of acting just as a safety net, the strategy supercharges your investment. First, you create a personal financial reservoir that grows at a compounding interest rate much higher than any bank savings account. As your money accumulates, you borrow from your own bank to invest in other cash flowing investments. Here's the key, even though you've borrowed money at a simple interest rate. Your insurance company keeps paying you compound interest on that money even though you've borrowed it. Net result, you make money in two places at the same time. That's why your investments get supercharged. This isn't a new technique. It's a refined strategy used by some of the wealthiest families in history, and it uses century old rock solid insurance companies as its backbone. Turbocharge your investments visit. Wealth Formula banking.com. Again, that's wealth formula banking.com. Welcome back to the show, everyone. Today I'm joined by Parag, Dr. Parag Khanna, a globally recognized strategist, bestselling author, and founder of Alpha Geo. His work focuses on some of the most important forces shaping the future of wealth, opportunity, uh, wealth, opportunity, migration, demographics, climate and technology. He's advised governments, global institutions, and even military leaders on how to navigate a rapidly changing world, and his books, including Move the Future is Asian, have become. Essential guides for understanding where people capital and power are headed. Uh, welcome to show up Pak, how are you? Thank you. Great. Great to be with you. And, uh, thanks again for coming all the way across, uh, the world from Singapore. Uh, I just got you off your, uh, ice bath and, and tea, so we should be ready to go right now. Ready to rock? For sure. That is the best way to start the day. So I wanna talk to you about things that, you know, you're, you're an expert on. Um, one of the things that you talk about is, uh, migration as an investment signal. So you've written that migration is, is a driver of growth, which makes intuitive sense. So what migration trends should investors be watching closely as signals, uh, for where capital will flow next? Sure. I mean, there's many reasons to talk about migration and you know, just backing up for a moment, it really is the original globalization. So when we think of globalization as a force for good, a force for prosperity, a force for comparative advantage among nations and so forth, well migration, it all began with a single step. Now, the reason this is so important today is because not only do we have the mass migrations of today, which can be both. Enriching and also destabilizing. Right? It's not merely an unadulterated good look at the politics of the United States right now, for example. Yeah, in Europe. Yeah. Migration, turning migration off or on literally has a significant measurable economic impact. Right now, for example, already economists are debating how. The extent to which cutting off inflows of migrants is going negatively impact GDP as we head into a recession, right? Among other things, right? So will it be wages or is it simply going to choke the innovative capacity? In the productive capacity and just the output of key industries. Uh, so that's something to, to dig into in a, uh, for a bit. But the real, one of the big reasons why I wrote the book is because. Unlike the last a hundred plus years where the world population was going like this, right? Quadrupling over the past century. Now we're reaching a plateau, as you know, and this is why Elon Musk and everyone talks about, yeah, you know, peak humanity and civilizational decline and low fertility rates. I mean, he's, he's late to the game, quite frankly. You know, those of us who work on these issues have been talking about this for a very long time. We've also noticed that it's too late. A lot of people on social media are still kind of saying, let's get, let's have more babies, or These rich people have babies, right? I just need to remind everyone so we're on the same page. It's not enough. It's not nearly enough. There are not enough children. There will never be enough children. You need humanoids in robots or whatever the case may be, to take care of the elderly and the young. At this point, there's so few young people. So migration matters because where young people go in particular, take millennials, gen Z, gen Alpha, take everyone between the ages of five and 40. 35 years, or they're up to 45. So a 40 year block spanning a couple of generations. Everyone today, who's young, where they go, they vote with their feet, whether they're moving from California to Texas, right? You know, LA's loss is Austin's gain, or San Francisco Boulder, Colorado's gain, or you know, Boise Idaho's gain, right? It's zero sum when you don't have population growth, right? My people, I lose. You gain people, you win. So the zero sum nature of demographics and migration is what's new because up until the present, every place was just having more and more children. So it's like, oh, well a million Indians left India, like no big deal. Right? Um, but once, once you stop having population growth, it's, it's zero sum. So in other words, why does it matter for investors? It's three words. Follow the people. If a country, so you know, you and I can sit here and pontificate and we can say, oh, Europe is finished. Europe is dead. Well, I mean, look, go to Lisbon, go to Berlin. Go to Athens. Yeah. Those places feel dead. No, they're attracting young people. So it's not necessarily at a country level. Right. But city by city, place by place. It's, you can boil down all the complexity of the world. Geographically into this one thing. If a place is attracting young people there, mu it must be doing something right. So, so in that regard, pro, so who, who are some of the winners and who are some of the losers when it comes to, at the city level? So here's a place that everyone's heard of Dubai, right? The United Arab Emirates, right as a country and Dubai as a city.

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. Transcript Disclaimer: This transcript was generated by AI and may not be 100% accurate. If you notice any errors or corrections, please email us at phil@wealthformula.com.  If your trust is drafted really well at the inception or via the first decanting, you probably will never have to decant the trust again simply because you've already built the flexibilities into the trust. Welcome everybody. This is Buck Joffrey with the Wealth Formula Podcast coming to you from Montecito, California. Before we begin, reminder. There is a website associated with this podcast called wealth formula.com. Go check it out for the latest resources there. And also, uh, remember that if you are an accredited investor and you would like to potentially see deal flow, uh, go to wealth formula.com and sign up for the investor club. You'll get onboarded. At that point, potentially, uh, see opportunities that you wouldn't otherwise see that are limited for accredit investors. Again, that's wealth formula.com. Sign up for investor club. Now let's, uh, let's talk a little bit about issues, uh, related to, uh, building of wealth. One of the realities of building wealth is that the more you have, the more you have to lose asset protection and estate planning Art. Just legal technicalities. They're really an essential part of safeguarding everything you've worked for. You know, the worst time to plan this stuff is when you actually need it. So if you wait until you're facing a lawsuit, a creditor or a sudden death in the family, it's already too late. Right? Think of asset protection like insurance. That's basically what it is. Most of us would drive without auto insurance or own a home without homeowner's insurance yet. Many wealthy people operate businesses, hold investments, build family wealth without putting legal structures in place to shield those assets. And all it takes is one lawsuit, one major life event that can undo decades of work on the estate side. Not having a proper plan doesn't just cost money. It actually creates an enormous amount of 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, losing valuable time and resources. Now, we've talked on this show a lot about the basics. Everyone should take forming entities on the asset protection side, of course. And when it comes to the estate planning, you gotta have both a will and a living trust. Okay? You've got to do that. If you don't, uh, if you don't look it up right now and, and you'll understand why it has to do with probate, but. We're going beyond that today, but your, 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 trust, asset protection trust, and the best jurisdictions to set them up. So these aren't just technical details, they're really the difference between wealth that gets preserved, uh, and. Debt that does not. So to help understand the nuances of this stuff, particularly this concept of the dynasty trust, I've invited, um, one of the most respected attorneys in this space. Someone who's really seen by other attorneys as a thought leader who essentially kind of follow his lead. Uh, Steve Oshins. He's pioneered strategies that are now industry standards and his work has shaped really how. Families, uh, across the country, high net worth families really protect and grow their wealth. You're going to wanna listen to this 'cause even if you are not wealthy today, probably are on your way. And, uh, this, this could very much be about your. Your future self, and we will have that interview with Steve Oshins right after these messages. Wealth Formula banking is an ingenious concept powered by whole life insurance, but instead of acting just as a safety net, the strategy supercharges your investments. First, you create a personal financial reservoir that grows at a compounding interest rate. Much higher than any bank savings account. As your money accumulates, you borrow from your own bank to invest in other cash flowing investments. Here's the key. Even though you've borrowed money at a simple interest rate, your insurance company keeps paying you compound interest on that money even though you've borrowed it. Net result, you make money in two places at the same time. That's why your investments get supercharged. This isn't a new technique. It's a refined strategy used by some of the wealthiest families in history, and it uses century old rock solid insurance companies as its backbone. Turbocharge your investments. Visit Wealth formula banking.com. Again, that's wealth formula banking.com. Welcome back to the show everyone. Today my guest on Wealth Formula podcast is Steve  Oshins.  He's one of the nation's leading experts on estate planning and asset protection. He's based in Nevada and is really best known for pioneering strategies like the Nevada Dynasty Trust Hybrid Asset Protection Trust. Uh, he also publishes the annual state rankings for Dynasty and Asset Protection Trust tools that attorneys across the country really rely on. He is really a thought leader in this field, and I really want to emphasize that. Um, a lot of people kind of listen to what he does and kind of pivot their own law practice based on what Steve is, is coming up with. Uh, so really excited to have him. Steve, uh, welcome to the show. Thank you, buck. It's great to be here. So Steve, let's, let's start out with this. Um, people in this, um, you know, in this audience, they hear about all sorts of different kind of trusts. What exactly is a Nevada dynasty trust and why is, uh, Nevada often considered one of the best jurisdictions for these types of things? Well, let's start with what a dynasty trust is. A dynasty trust is an irrevocable trust that continues for as long as applicable state law allows. Um, in many states that will be roughly 120 years, and in other states like Nevada, it can be 365 years, and there are other states where it can be perpetual. So why would we wanna set that up? Because for as long as the trust is in existence, those assets are protected from estate taxes. Creditors and divorce and spouses are the beneficiaries. So all in all, we want to maximize the duration of the trust so we can protect the assets from estate, taxes, creditors, and divorce for the children, the grandchildren, the great-grandchildren, and so on and so forth. So why is Nevada one of the leaders? Well, Nevada and South Dakota are the leaders and no state is even close. There's a. Big drop off before you get to the next batch of states. Nevada and South Dakota are basically neck and neck. The, the dis, the difference is that South Dakota allows a perpetual trust, whereas Nevada allows a 365 year trust. In my opinion, the world might not even be here in year 360 6, so that's not a big deal. Uh, basically you go somewhere where you have a relationship with a well reasonably priced trust company. Uh, that that bills on a flat fee basis and it's a low number that it's not gonna scare anyone away. And then you, whether it's South Dakota or Nevada, wherever your relationship is, and my best relationships are obviously in Nevada, that's where you go. These, you can't go wrong with either of these two states. Got it. So with, uh, for someone with significant wealth, what are the real benefits of setting up a dynasty trust? Um, obviously, you know. You can talk about them, but asset protection, estate planning, something else. Sure. There are three different things that I'm looking for. I'm looking for asset protection. I'm looking for state tax avoidance, and I'm looking for income tax savings opportunities. Um,

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.Transcript Disclaimer: This transcript was generated by AI and may not be 100% accurate. If you notice any errors or corrections, please email us at phil@wealthformula.com.  If you are purely investing in the public markets, in many cases, you've missed the majority of a company's growth cycle. Welcome everybody. This is Buck Joffrey Wealth Formula Podcast, coming to you from Montecito, California today. Before we begin, as I always do, I will suggest you visit walt formula.com, which is the, um. Primary Home of Wealth Formula podcast, and it's also where you can get some resources outside of the podcast, including access to our accredited investor club, otherwise known as investor Club. Uh, that is where you can get, if, if you aren't an accredited investor, you can get access to opportunities that you would not otherwise see because they are not available to the general public. Um, speaking of. That kind of investment that's not typically, uh, available to the general public. Uh, that takes us sort of to the topic of today's show. That is, um, well, you see, I'm not a big stock guy, as you probably know, if you've listened to this show before, I'm not, you know, listen, I'm not anti stock. It's just not, you know. Generally what I've invested in my life. However, there are some companies out there that you just know are going to change the world, and because of that, it'd be nice to potentially be able to own part of them, you know, especially if they, if before they go public. That's why this week on Wealth Formula Podcast, we're gonna dive into a topic that's sort of been on my mind for some time. The world of what's called pre IPO investing. Basically investing before a stock goes public. Now, 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 at a premium, you're not alone. Again, this is not something I do often, but I had, um, as you know from my previous shows, I believe heavily that this whole world of stable coins is going to be enormous. And I had my eye on a company called Circle and then trades with CR Cl, uh, which deals in stable coins, uh, which is a, a really big player in stable coins. I think this is gonna be huge. Uh, but as soon as Circle went public, the valuation shot up, like just took off where it was kind of ridiculous and. At that point, basically it was just too expensive to jump in. It just didn't make any sense. Now, if I'd had access to those shares before the IPO, and if it, you know, started where it actually started, I definitely would've taken the plunge and I actually would've made a lot of money. But that didn't happen. Now, this isn't just about one company. We've, you know, seen this happen several times, uh, before people know there's this big private company that, you know, all the. Insiders are gonna make a bunch of money on IPO comes bang, they all cash in, right? But there are some out there that are in that pre IPO phase right now, such as SpaceX, um, you know, Elon's, uh, one of Elon Musk's companies. Um, you know, they are out there traveling space. They also own starlink, uh, all that kind of stuff. So, you know, that company's gonna have a huge impact, at least. I mean, you know, I guess you don't know for sure, but. Shown us one thing before he, he can, uh, he can build extraordinary companies. So that's something I would be interested in. But how do you get access to those deals, right? If you're an accredited investor, as it turns out, I have good news on this show. Getting a piece of the action before these companies go public isn't actually just for the ultra wealthy Silicon Valley insiders anymore. It's actually becoming more accessible to accredited investors who want to get in early. Potentially see greater upside. So that is a topic of this week's show, and we will have, uh, that conversation right after these messages. Wealth formula banking is an ingenious concept powered by whole life insurance, but instead of acting just as a safety net, the strategy supercharges your investment. First, you create a personal financial reservoir that grows at a compounding interest rate much higher than any bank savings account. As your money accumulates, you borrow from your own bank to invest in other cash flowing investments. Here's the key, even though you've borrowed money at a simple interest rate. Your insurance company keeps paying you compound interest on that money even though you've borrowed it. Net result, you make money in two places at the same time. That's why your investments get supercharged. This isn't a new technique. It's a refined strategy used by some of the wealthiest families in history, and it uses century old rock solid insurance companies as its backbone. Turbocharge your investments visit. Wealth Formula banking.com. Again, that's wealth formula banking.com. Welcome back to the show, everyone. Today my guest, uh, on Wealth Formula podcast. Christine Healey, she's founder of Healy Pre IPO. Which is a, uh, boutique brokerage firm that gives high net worth investors access to some of the world's most exclusive pre IPO opportunities. Companies like SpaceX, open AI and Stripe long before they hit the public markets. Uh, she's closed over 600 million in private market deals. Previously held leadership roles at firms like Destiny Tech 100 and Forge Global. She's built a white glove concierge level service for investors who want insider access to vetted late stage private companies without the corporate red tape. Welcome to the program, Christine. Thank you, buck. Great to be here. Well, um, let's, let's kind of start with, so we have a lot of, you know, retail investors, accredited investors. This may not be something, uh, that, that they know much about. So for investors who only know about public markets, uh, those types of stocks, what exactly is the pre IPO market? How does it work? So I see a lot of high net worth investors that may hold, um, very skilled professional jobs. They might be doctors or lawyers or small business owners, and they see companies like SpaceX constantly in the news with these amazing milestones. Or they might use open AI's product chat GBT every day in some cases. But they're seeing these amazing technological innovations as a bystander. A lot of them are saying, um, I've worked hard to build an amass some wealth. I've got a high income. I wish there was a way to actually financially participate in these stocks. Sure. So investing pre IPO is essentially a way to invest in these companies while they're still private companies in a bespoke privately. Brokered transaction where you might be matched with a private seller, like an early employee, or you might be matched with an early VC that's looking for liquidity and you can actually get in before the IPO. So we've seen a lot of IPOs recently be very choppy, very volatile. Mm-hmm. In many cases, um, a lot of value in a technology company's lifecycle is accruing purely on the private markets. Since these tech companies are waiting longer and longer to IPO in a lot of cases. So if you are purely investing in the public markets, in many cases, you've missed the majority of a company's growth cycle. So what I do is help investors, um, that are accredited to get into some of their favorite companies that, that they love, that they believe in. Mm-hmm. That they're inspired by. And to navigate the private market, which is very tricky, in some cases, messy and requires a lot of bespoke, um, process. Yeah. And, and I think, um, one of the things that I have noticed sort of, kind of sniffing around this pre IPO space, there's obviously a few companies who, who do this and um, you know, one of the questions I always have when I'm looking at it as a retail investor is like. Yeah, this is an interesting company. I hear about, you know, ripple or I hear about like Circle before it happened. Um, and the issue there becomes like, how in the world do you know if it's a good price? Because, you know, the valuations, um, that these things are being offered at often look significant, right? They'll say the, there's like a, uh, the last valuation was, you know, uh, literally, you know, half or. 25% of what,

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.

Hey everyone, If you’ve been following me for any length of time, you already know that I believe real estate is the single greatest wealth-building tool available to everyday investors like you and me. (Although, I’ll admit, Bitcoin is making a strong case to be in that conversation.) But every once in a while, it’s worth stepping back and asking: Why has real estate created more millionaires than any other asset class—and why do the ultra-wealthy keep buying it, decade after decade? It comes down to a unique stack of advantages that you simply can’t replicate anywhere else: Leverage: Real estate is one of the few investments where banks are eager to give you money to buy an appreciating asset. You put down a fraction of the purchase price and control 100% of the property—and 100% of the upside. Leverage can be a double-edged sword in down markets, but it remains the most powerful tool in the arsenal of the rich. Other People’s Money: Every month, your tenants pay rent that covers your mortgage and builds your equity. Essentially, they’re buying the property for you. Appreciation (Natural and Forced): Over time, rents and property values generally trend upward. But here’s the thing—you can force appreciation by raising rents, cutting costs, and improving operations. On properties over four units, these improvements increase net operating income (NOI), which directly determines the property’s market value. That’s how sophisticated investors manufacture wealth on demand. Tax Advantages (The Secret Weapon): The IRS lets you deduct a portion of your property’s value each year—depreciation—even while the property itself often climbs in value. Now, here’s where things get truly magical: cost segregation combined with 100% bonus depreciation. These strategies let you front-load those tax deductions, often allowing you to write off a massive portion of your investment in the first year. For example, let’s say you buy a property for $1 million and put down $300K. With a proper cost segregation study and bonus depreciation, you might receive a K-1 showing a $300K loss that same year. That’s a paper loss offsetting your taxable income—meaning money that would’ve gone to the IRS is now working to build your wealth instead. And with Congress reinstating 100% bonus depreciation, this playbook for savvy investors is back at full strength. If you think about it, upfront tax savings alone can turbocharge your returns before you’ve even collected your first rent check. This week on Wealth Formula Podcast, I sit down with Gian Pazzia, chairman and chief strategy officer at KBKG, to pull back the curtain on cost segregation and bonus depreciation. We’ll dig into: How cost segregation really works—and when to use it. How passive investors and short-term rental owners can take advantage of it. What to know about recapture taxes, 1031 exchanges, and long-term planning. If you’ve ever wondered how sophisticated investors legally shelter huge amounts of income while building massive wealth, this episode gives you the inside track. P.S. If you want access to the “Do it Yourself” Cost Segregation tool mentioned in this podcast, you can access it HERE. Use the code FORMULAPROMO to get 10% off.

Last week, we talked about side gigs—smart ways to earn extra income outside your day job. One of the options we touched on was affiliate marketing, a tried-and-true method still relevant today. But here’s another strategy I’ve personally dabbled in: building websites designed to generate leads. These sites are created with specific search terms in mind—mine were focused on cosmetic surgery—but the model can be applied to nearly any industry. Once your site is ranking on Google and generating traffic, you rent out that digital space to businesses who want the leads. I had a friend who made millions using this model with smartlipo.com back in the day. It was like owning valuable digital real estate. But that was then. The landscape has shifted. With the rise of tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity, fewer people are relying on traditional search engines. So the question is: Is this still a viable side hustle in 2025? And if it is, how does it work now—and how can you get started? That’s exactly what we’re diving into on this week’s Wealth Formula Podcast.

My financial journey started after I accidentally picked up one of Robert Kiyosaki’s books. It was the end of my honeymoon in Puerto Vallarta, and my wife (at the time) and I were waiting for our plane back home. I decided to grab a book from one of the little airport shops, but there weren’t many choices. In fact, I believe there were four, and three of them were romance novels with pictures of muscular men with long blonde hair on them. The only other option was Robert Kiyosaki’s Cashflow Quadrant. I had no idea who Robert Kiyosaki was, nor did I really care that much about investing and personal finance. But it sounded like a better read than the others, so I bought it. At the time, I had just finished residency training and was focused on my career ahead. I never really thought much about money beyond the fact that I was finally going to make some after years of indentured servitude as a surgical resident. But on the flight back from Mexico, everything changed. Reading that book felt like a bolt of lightning, and it changed my mindset forever. This experience, I later found out, has happened to countless people I’ve met since then. I call it taking the pill (the book is purple). A world of possibilities suddenly opened up to me. I know it may sound strange, but the idea that I could ever not have a job and, instead, become an entrepreneur had never before occurred to me. In hindsight, I understand why. I was a very good student. “A students" get addicted to the educational system. When you get As, you are rewarded. You get accolades. Your teachers love you. What’s not to love? That makes you try even harder. That feeling of success is addictive, and you want more of it. So you aspire to do the things that the smart kids are supposed to do, like going to a fancy college and becoming a lawyer or doctor. If you succeed in a system, you don’t doubt the system. You don’t look for alternatives. The system I bought into was an educational system created by industrialists a century ago. They didn’t want to train entrepreneurs; they wanted to train a workforce. And I was winning in that system. C students, on the other hand, have nothing to lose. They search for success in other ways and often end up more successful than those who did better in school. That’s why A students rarely become entrepreneurs. They never have a reason to look outside the system. The purple book I read on that plane helped me break away from that world. I saw life differently after reading it. Even though I was already a surgeon who had completed residency, I never wanted to work for anyone ever again. I started my own cosmetic surgery practice, then another medical business, and had a lot of success. I also tried my hand at other businesses that were less successful. I made lots of money and lost lots of money. Living the life of an entrepreneur is not for the faint of heart. I also believe, to a certain extent, that you are either born an entrepreneur or you are not. I was born an entrepreneur, despite the fact that it took me over 30 years to discover it. Because of that, I never push anyone to quit their job and go out on their own. That kind of risk is not for everyone. That said, there are certainly ways to dabble in entrepreneurship without risking everything. People call them side hustles. Side hustles are ways to make a little extra money that you can use to make an extra investment or simply go on a nicer vacation. One of those side hustles I have engaged in is affiliate marketing. Ten or fifteen years ago, I had websites designed to sell products to people by providing links to things they might be interested in—even Amazon links. If someone decided to buy something after clicking my link, I would get a small commission from the seller. It was not a huge money maker for me, so eventually I decided to focus on other things. However, opportunities like this still exist. And these days, it doesn’t really take any technical savvy to participate. On this week’s episode of Wealth Formula Podcast, we learn about one option that may be of interest to you. This one may or may not be a good fit for you, but it will get you thinking. There are a million ways to make money out there. All you have to do is look for them. You can start by listening to this week’s episode of Wealth Formula Podcast. P.S. I have not used the platform we talked about on the show, nor do I stand to benefit from it financially. It’s purely educational.

There’s no shortage of doom-and-gloom in the podcast world—especially in the gold and silver crowd. You know the type. The ones who spend half their airtime warning you that the dollar is about to collapse, the grid will go down, and that only silver coins will save you. I used to buy into that narrative too. I was a card-carrying member of the Zombie Apocalypse school of personal finance. I even listened to Peter Schiff religiously. But as time passed and I realized that zombies would not rule the world, I gradually became an optimist. I believe in the resilience of the U.S. economy. I don’t think society is going to crumble, and I’m not prepping for Armageddon. That said, there is one warning from the doom crowd that’s absolutely true—and it’s not a matter of opinion. It’s a fact. The U.S. dollar is losing value. Fast. That might not feel dramatic. But it should. Because it means that if you’re sitting on cash—thinking you’re being conservative—you’re actually guaranteeing yourself a loss. Robert Kiyosaki said it best: “Savers are losers.”It’s a clever phrase, but it’s not a joke. It’s reality. Inflation isn’t a glitch in the system—it is the system. In a country running record-breaking deficits and drowning in debt, the only viable solution is to devalue the currency. In other words, print more money. And whether that inflation comes in at a “modest” 2% like the Fed wants, or 7–9% like we saw in recent years, the outcome is the same: your money loses purchasing power. A dollar in 1970 had the buying power of nearly $8 today. So if your dad tucked away $10,000 in a shoebox thinking he was doing you a favor, that money is now worth a little over $1,200. Even the money you saved in the year 2000 has lost nearly half its value. Inflation is the background noise of our economy. It’s always there, always working, always eroding. Slowly when things are “normal.” Fast when they’re not. So what do you do? Well, if you’re keeping large chunks of money in a savings account paying less than 1% interest while inflation clips along at 3–6%, you are, without exaggeration, bleeding wealth every single day. It feels safe. It looks safe. But it’s not.It’s a bucket with a hole in the bottom. And you don’t even notice until it’s almost empty. That’s why the wealthy don’t hoard cash. They own assets that inflate with inflation. They buy things that grow in value as the dollar shrinks—because they understand the system. They don’t fight it. They ride it. Real estate is one of the best tools in the game. Home prices tend to rise over time. Rents go up. But if you lock in a 30-year fixed mortgage, your payment never changes. So while the cost of everything else is climbing, your loan stays frozen. Meanwhile, inflation is silently reducing the real value of the debt you owe. You’re paying it back in cheaper dollars every single year. Then you’ve got ownership in productive businesses. Sure, stock prices can swing in the short term. But long-term? Equities in companies with pricing power—companies that can raise prices when costs go up—often outpace inflation. And as an owner, you benefit directly. And finally, there are the scarce assets. Bitcoin. Gold. Precious metals. In a world where central banks can conjure trillions out of nowhere, things that can’t be printed tend to hold real value—or even multiply it. This is how the wealthy play the game.While most people are watching their savings accounts decay quietly, the wealthy are stacking assets that appreciate. They are playing offense in a very predictable system. So those are the basics. But let me give you one more ninja tip from the wealthiest real estate investors in the world: You can print your own money by using debt. Think about it. Let’s say you buy a $250,000 property this year using a 30-year fixed mortgage. You put 20% down, so you’re financing $200,000. Now fast forward three decades. Even if you paid zero principal and still owed $200,000 in nominal terms, you eroded the value of that debt. With just 3% annual inflation, the real value of that debt has been cut in half. You’re effectively repaying $100,000 in today’s dollars. That’s how you print your own dollars. That’s not just hedging inflation. That’s weaponizing it. Now if you take nothing else from this rant, remember that currency debasement is not theoretical. It’s happening in real time. This week’s episode of Wealth Formula Podcast dives deep on this topic and what you can do to prepare yourself for the ever-shrinking buying power of the U.S. dollar.

I want to share a story you may have heard before—but it’s worth telling again. When I finished surgical training and joined a practice in 2008, we were in the middle of the Great Recession. But for me, the recession didn’t mean anything. My net worth was below zero. I’d made less than $50K a year for seven years. I wasn’t worried about losing money—I didn’t have any. What I did have was a new six-figure salary and a baby on the way. Suddenly, I had to start thinking like a grown-up. I needed to protect my family. I needed life insurance. But I had no idea what that really meant. I started asking around. One of the younger surgeons told me to “buy term and invest the difference.” That’s what Dave Ramsey and Suze Orman were preaching on TV too. But an older surgeon—close to retirement—told me something very different. He’d been financially wrecked by the market crash and said permanent life insurance was one of the only things keeping him afloat. Here’s the thing: they were both kind of right. The young guy was right that most permanent life insurance is designed in such a way that it is a terrible investment. But the older guy had discovered something the hard way—permanent life insurance can offer unmatched financial stability when everything else is falling apart. Still, neither of them understood what I would come to learn just a few years later from some of my wealthiest friends. You see, permanent life insurance isn’t one thing. It’s a flexible tool. In the right hands, it can be optimized for estate planning, tax-free growth, or even used as a powerful retirement income strategy—especially for those of us who started making money later in life. That’s when I took a deep dive, even getting a life insurance license so I could fully understand the mechanics myself. What I found became the foundation for Wealth Formula Banking, Wealth Accelerator, and now, Wealth Accelerator Plus.  In fact, some of these strategies are so effective that they’ve already helped people like me “catch up” on retirement income planning—even if we didn’t start earning real money until our 30s. On this week’s show, I talk with one of my new partners at Wealth Formula Banking, Brandon Preece. We unpack common misconceptions about life insurance, discuss mainstream strategies, and then go further—exploring new protocols that could be game-changers for your financial future. If you haven’t learned about this stuff yet, it’s time. And if you have, it’s time to revisit all of these strategies. These strategies have played a major role in my financial life—and in the lives of many in our Wealth Formula community. And I can honestly say that I don’t know of a single person who ever regretted setting up a plan!