Money Conversations with KJ
Money Conversations with KJ
090: Financial Empowerment through Real Estate: Gary Wilson's Journey
Get ready to fundamentally alter your financial outlook in our latest podcast episode featuring the seasoned real estate investor and agent, Gary Wilson. Engage with us as we journey through Gary's remarkable life experiences, from childhood lessons on the value of money to the development of vital skills such as diligence, self-discipline, and salesmanship. Listen closely as Gary shares how these foundational skills have propelled him into entrepreneurial success, enabling him to control his time and continuously expand his business.
Don't miss out, as we tackle the ever-important topic of credit card debt, where we distinguish between good and bad debt. Gary shares a candid look into his experience leveraging debt to make money and cautions against the misuse of credit cards for consumer purchases. We delve into the vital role of mentors in our lives, recounting our experiences and emphasizing the importance of acquiring revenue-generating assets before luxuries. Get in the know as we uncover the perks of assuming VA mortgages and why financial responsibility is key.
Before we wrap up, we venture into the critical aspect of imparting financial knowledge to the younger generation and the significance of setting clear goals. For hesitant parents, we share practical advice on broaching money matters with their children, reinforcing the importance of equipping them for future financial success. We debunk the misconception of solely relying on a 401K for retirement and underline the importance of having multiple income streams. As the icing on the cake, we share retirement planning nuggets from Gary, who retired at 40, emphasizing the need to start early, leverage compound interest, and understand the rule of 72. Don't miss this power-packed episode poised to revolutionize your financial future.
Don't forget to subscribe, like and share it with a friend or two!
Welcome to Money Conversations with KJ. Kj is a lifelong entrepreneur who's made a lot of money, lost a lot of money and found his way back again. If you're looking for a sterile how-to, you're in the wrong place. Kj and his guests will walk you through real-life situations told by the people who live them, and they are as messy as they are inspiring. Each episode will offer lessons learned, advice on how to replicate successes and avoid pitfalls, and a new perspective to power your financial literacy. Far from a one-size-fits-all, this podcast can help you build a roadmap to your personal promise land Milk and honey for some, whiskey and steak for others and remind you that you're not alone on this journey.
Speaker 2:Well, welcome back everybody to the show. I'm KJ, your host. Today. I have a guest.
Speaker 2:This gentleman I've known for, I'm going to say, about four years or so. He's in the real estate arena and he's a real estate investor. He's a real estate agent. He's got a brokerage firm with agents. He's all in real estate and I worked with him a few years back when we were doing some live events together helping him out where he helps agents. If you're an agent out there listening to this, then I highly encourage you to go to his website and we'll get that information to you shortly because he could definitely help you out. This gentleman started investing right after college. He had a mentor that suggested to him, you know, real estate was the path to go and to create multiple streams of income. And so here we are, roughly, I believe, around 40 years later is what he did, and so, as our podcast is talking about money, we're going to get into how he did that right, how he leveraged real estate to provide himself with the lifestyle that he lives today. So I'd like to welcome today Mr Gary Wilson.
Speaker 3:Thanks, Kevin. I appreciate the kind introduction. Let me fit my head back in my box now. I think before, but I appreciate the opportunity to help you know.
Speaker 2:Oh, awesome, I'm really excited to have you here because you know in you have your podcast and we know we have listeners all over the world and people listen to these podcasts because they want to be two things they want to be entertained slash. They want to learn right, we all want to learn something and we want to be entertained. So hopefully we're going to be able to do both of those things today is entertain and get some some life lessons out there to help people. And on my end, right, I'm trying to help people who struggle with money, because you and I last week talked about it's not about making money. Most people are out there making money. It's what we do with our money that determines. That's what our lifestyle is going to be.
Speaker 2:And I'm real big my new book coming out, you know, breaking the paycheck to paycheck cycle, which should be out shortly, and all you guys who follow me can see that on my website. But I really want to dig into the lessons that you learn that we can help these folks with. But one of the first lessons actually questions that I want to ask you, that I ask all my podcast guests when we come out here, because I believe this question is the root of why people handle money the way they do, and the question is how old were you, gary, when mom and dad sat you down and taught you about money?
Speaker 3:Yeah, we know. What's funny is I don't really remember a specific conversation, but I know when I was five years old I got like a quarter a week just to do my chores, you know, make my bed and and put my clothes away, put my toys away, and I remember I was so happy to get that quarter. Man, I thought I hope freaking quarter, and we could lose money by not doing much or, as we lose a nickel If we didn't do our bed, for example, we could also gain more money by doing extra around the house. And it was really that. It came from my dad's side of the family.
Speaker 3:My mom saw the family were not really money savvy. In fact, it was just not even I don't know. I think they just. It was just stuff that flowed through their life and flowed in and flowed right back out, whereas my dad's side of the family there were some wealthy people there. So an interesting programming. And I learned more as a young adult, like when I was in junior high, starting to really work for money and learning about my ancestors who were built businesses. That's really when I started appreciating. You know what it meant to earn and keep some of the money. That was probably 12 years old, you know.
Speaker 2:Well, I love that response because you know I talk a lot about with people, the adults. Why and how you spend and handle your money is predetermined from the age of five to seven. And so for the fact that you just mentioned at age five and you dated yourself by saying you're getting a quarter for allowance, right, that's okay, because today's world I don't even know what a quarter will buy us, but anyway. So the fact that at five you remember that lesson, and when you said that to me, it made me realize why you have the work ethic you do right and in life, right, we're. Hopefully people are understanding the Todd we have to go out and give value to the world, right, jim Rohn says you got to give value to the marketplace. And so the fact that you learn that at that age and remember it totally explains why your life unfolded the way it has. Because one most people don't remember maybe that far back or any type of money lesson usually is what I get like mom and dad never sat me down, so that's really cool. And then that led on to other lessons, right? And then knowing that you would get rewarded for doing more or get taken away if you did less what another great. And again, I call these subconscious lessons right, like you really didn't. You don't realize it at five years old, really right? You just it's really basic for you, but subconsciously, what that does to a human and creates their habits is so powerful, so powerful.
Speaker 2:And then also, you were telling me how one parent was savvy, more savvy with money than the other parent. I get that a lot and it's weird. How, why do we as people as you know, young people why do we gravitate to one side of the? Because I've had people on the podcast who went the other direction and like, oh yeah, this parent was savvy with money, this one wasn't. They spent and I became a spender, so they gravitated the other side. Picture and imagine what your life would have been if you were to gravitate towards your mom's side.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but be like my brother or sister and live in paycheck to paycheck.
Speaker 2:Right, see. So again for you guys listening out there that have kids, because I talked to a lot of parents and you've probably heard this too, gary that they always say let kids be kids. It's too young to talk to kids about money and responsibility and finance. I'm like you guys aren't getting it. No, it is not too young. It's the opportune, perfect time to talk to a kid between five and seven, because they're watching us parents and they're trying to emulate whatever we do, because in their at five or seven, whatever mom and dad's doing, it's the right thing to do, it must be normal, that's what mom and dad do. That must be the right thing, right, because you know your kids love you so much they wouldn't think that mom and dad are doing something wrong, and so that's what really develops that. What a great answer. Oh, I love that. Well, let's move forward then.
Speaker 2:So you were mentioning that you know you're getting into high school and money really started becoming. You knew trading, trading whether it was time or value for money or things. Right, because I know as kids we would trade things. You know we could trade comic books for whatever type of thing. So what are some of the other money lessons prior to being, I consider, an adult, over 18. What were some of the other lessons you were learning?
Speaker 3:Yeah Well, really, the first regular job I had was a delivery newspaper. So I was, you know, nine years old and this was back when you deliver papers and actually collected money from people, you know right. So I never forget during the week, money through Friday it was full because I did it at five in the morning and other people were waking up and going to work the hard on Kevin was on Sundays, man, I had to get up at five in the morning on Sunday and nobody was awake, and this is when the movie Bigfoot came out. So I'm like I'm really scared. I'm walking out there, me and my. I had a like a ocean cart that I pushed with the papers in and go to people's houses and I'm hearing all these noises and the trees are creaking and cracking and I'm thinking I'm a goner. I'm so glad it wasn't automated. I'm so glad I had to go and visit those houses once a month to collect the money.
Speaker 3:Now, of course, we get some tips from some people, and then I had to give some of that to the newspaper company, right, it wasn't all my money. So I got to keep the difference, and so the first lesson was putting time into it and wanting to grow my route. So I would always knock on doors when I was collecting for people that weren't on my route and I would say, hey, you know, I'm delivering papers to Dr So-and-so next door and you like to have a paper too, you know? And I would grow my route that way and eventually I doubled the size of the route and I started had to get help and things like that. So what I realized is number one you money just doesn't come to you freely. You have to go get it, you know in. Number two is you've got to always expand your business. It's typically we want more money. We didn't. We're not satisfied with a buck or two, we went three or four dollars, you know, later on I, when I started working oh, this is horrible.
Speaker 3:So junior high I was working for FTD. I was, you know, during the holidays and Mother's Day and the same St Patrick's Day and Valentine's Day and all that delivering flowers. And the guy they paired me with was his old, old, foggy and as a mini van not a mini van, a regular size like a Chevy van, and he's mostly horrible stokies and I like all day long, I'm just breathing in this, this disgusting smoke, right in a day. I'm just green. I mean, literally my skin was green. But and I get this I think my hourly rate recording in progress was like Bucks 16 something. This is before the first big Minimum wage went. There was like 235 and to me, buck 16. That's pretty darn good.
Speaker 3:So, moving fast forward into into a Early high school years, I worked for a produce store that opened up, just a unique niche type of Store that sold only produce, and I started going in the morning to open, open up. I would go on and get up at five, going at six, open up the store and go to school and on the wide work one day on the weekends, closing up so I close either Saturday or Sunday, said eventually became a seven day a week job. They gave me a raise. This is after 235 an hour. They gave me a raise because I was a hustler and I would work seven days a week. They're during the summer months too, which is really unusual, but I stayed up. Enough money, kevin, to help buy my first car. You know, if you're later, when I was 16, I'm thinking I'm gonna man, I'm gonna drive a freaking Corvette and of course you know you can't buy a Corvette with a few thousand dollars here, right.
Speaker 2:Right, geez what, let's unpack that, because so much greatness. You just described one at that young age with the paper route. Two things happened, guys. Two things happened a work ethic happened that he had to get up you know five am Go deliver these papers. So that's, that's self-discipline, right? And? And you know, a lot of people just don't have that. And so to. It developed people skills because you had to go see them once a month. And Three, it develops sales skills because you were selling yourself. And I know at that age you weren't thinking those three things right, you were thinking I want to make more money period, right. But guys, what he did sub again, we've learned so much stuff subconsciously what he did was learn these three skill sets and then, obviously, as the story keeps going and you get your other job, those early Skills that you learn help you get to that next position and earn more money because of the skills you learned right. And so it's funny.
Speaker 2:I remember speaking with another gentleman. You know we can always connect the dots looking backwards, and so we're connecting dots right now and we can really see how Gary's life is unfolding financially because of habits. He developed Skillsets that he learned and in life as we want to give value in life. Whether you're trading time for money or value for money, in a Lot of cases, both right, we can do both Learning these type of basis skill sets and then, just as life goes on and I know, gary Well that he's that excellent salesperson Probably still work seven days a week, right, you've done that, so now it's probably normal to you. It would be abnormal, you know, you and I are the same, which is most entrepreneurs. Actually, if we think about it, because we don't trade time for money, we trade value. Time doesn't equate in my mind that I'm making money Because I'm giving you my time, I'm giving you my value, and so we work seven days a week.
Speaker 2:The luxury that I tell people, gary, like I and I have as an entrepreneur, would be we get to control our time. It's like I'm getting ready to go to Nashville in about ten days, which was a spur of the thing. My sister lives out there. I'm gonna go help her out with some real estate stuff and, because I'm an entrepreneur, do it. I have to ask permission to anybody. No, I Talked to my wife headless and we're gonna go help out and it's just something that we put in our schedule. Are we gonna have, you know, some good times visiting with my family over there and make money the same time? Absolutely right. And so that's the value of being the entrepreneur where you're gonna, you can have the best of both worlds. Right, we can work seven days a week, yet we have the luxury of dictating our time and where we're going. And and Gary travels a lot, trust me, this, this guy, is definitely part of the million plus mile club on the airplanes. So well, that's awesome.
Speaker 2:What age? Because, again, you and I are similar in age and I'm trying to remember the first how old I was and I got my first credit card, or credit cards got introduced to me. But it's not about me today, it's you. How old were you when you were introduced and or got your first credit card, and why?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I was actually out of college. So now, while I was in college, even back then, credit card companies were sending credit card applications to college students. I remember thinking I think insane. I mean, you know we're we're not working, we're going to school and if we have money we're gonna buy beer.
Speaker 3:You know, we did we go to school and buy and drink beer. So in any case so I didn't some of the some of the students Fell into that trap. I mean some of them. One of them was one of my best friends and when he graduated we graduated college he does two thousand dollars. This is sound like a lot today, but back then this is seen almost 40 years ago he had, he started out two thousand, some hundred dollars in debt and was all beer, was all beer, wow, part of a credit card.
Speaker 3:So I didn't get my credit card till after I got my first job and I always, I never liked credit cards. I've never liked the whole principle is to me, I saw the evil in it. You know, you, you, if you buy a consumer product because you can buy it now and I don't have to worry about paying on it till later, you know, and then. But what happens is, human beings are human beings. Our memories can be short. Sometimes we forget the things we put on the credit card, because it's only ten bucks here and twenty bucks here and you get this Three hundred some dollar bill to end of the month like, oh crap, you know, and if you don't pay it, the interest drops accumulating. So I used to work for a bank. Banks know this stuff down. They they believe they're better psychologists than a psychologist. They know exactly what we're capable of.
Speaker 3:And a quick lesson on credit cards. Guys, we'll get back to the main subject here, the reason why banks are so Okay with giving everybody credit cards. They know a lot of us are gonna default, but they make so much money on the fees, not just from you and I, on interest payments from from the merchants. The merchants have to pay. The restaurants have to pay to users credit card services One to four percent. Okay, they're making more money you can shake a stick at. They could care less if you and I default on our credit card. I mean, they have some money on the phone.
Speaker 3:We say, well, okay, we'll just let this, we go to the, we're gonna charge it off and you'll never hear from us again. Well, guess what? You fall into that trap. You're less, gonna get a lot more difficult because you're not gonna be able to get good interest rates on any Loans for a long time. They'll say, oh yes, seven years. Now that stuff follows you around for a long time, folks, not just the record of it, but your habits that you're forming. So the lesson here for me is to teach you is you know you debt can be used responsibly and jewels can be used irresponsibly and I'll let Kevin go into that subject but learn to be in control of your debt, just like you're gonna be in control of your asset. So, in any case, that's my picture. You went on credit.
Speaker 2:No, that's a great vantage point because you did work at the bank and I do teach that lesson. Most of the time when I ask the question to folks how do you think credit card companies make their money? In 98% of the time people tell me, oh, they make their money off the interest that we pay them. And I tell them, no, no, no, no, you don't understand. Yes, they do make some money off that interest, but that's not their main goal. It's like Gary described. It's the merchants that pay them. Every time you and I swipe a card, whether it's at 7-Eleven, getting gas, food or going to the movie, whatever, it doesn't even matter, they get paid. So all they want you and me, as the consumer, to do is to swipe that card as many times and as often as possible, and they're making money. And so that's like Gary said and I teach that. That's why they don't care about defaulting, writing you off, and they're gonna get it as a write-off and they want that write-off anyway because they make so much bloody money. So, absolutely great lesson and you sidetracked that trap, so to speak. Right, I remember. Yeah, I got mine. I never really got into big, heavy credit card debt. I still use mine responsibly.
Speaker 2:I just teach people the difference between good debt and bad debt. Being good debt is leverage debt. That will make you money. If you go into debt because you're making money so like I flip poems and I'll use my credit cards to go buy materials and they pay them off when I sell set property, I just leverage debt. I don't have to use my own cash.
Speaker 2:Bad debt, I just call consumer debt. If it's not making you money, it's consumer. Don't buy dinner, shoes, whatever with your credit cards. You should just pay that. Unless you're responsible enough to pay it off at the end of the month because you have it, then fine, because I also believe in today's world unlike when you and I grew up, gary fraud, online fraud is rampant around the planet that it's the best way to protect yourself against someone getting into your account, because credit cards is OPM, it's other people's money, it's not your money. So if someone hacks into your card, you lose your wallet, you get mugged, whatever. Don't really stress about it, it's not your money anyway. You're just gonna report it and they'll handle it from there.
Speaker 2:So great credit card lesson, though don't live beyond your means. Don't get into consumer credit card debt. It's the worst. I call it an anchor and a cancer. Financially is what you have. You mentioned. I was looking, doing some more research that I about you more than I already know, but I didn't know that you did have a mentor early in life. Talk to the folks about not only the mentor that you had, but the value that that mentor gave you, and how did this particular person become a mentor towards you? Because when I talked to a lot of folks about getting finding a mentor and asking right and a lot of because mentors are, I call I, in my opinion, invaluable. I mean, they're amazing. So talk to us about yours.
Speaker 3:Sure, the very first what I'll consider mentors. I think I just wanted to tell you too I had some great teachers, particularly in high school, amazing teachers, and they were more like at hindsight, more like mentors as much as they were teachers. But in college I had my first really big lucky break in life. I mean, I've had a lot of good luck, a lot of bad luck. This was a good luck break and my college freshman year roommates named Socrates it's a real person, real name, and we're still good friends today, still alive, and his dad is the one who told us when we graduated we were gonna go rent, we're gonna go rent a place on the beach, live the life and cause. That's where we were Virginia Beach, virginia and his dad said no, you're not, you're gonna buy a place. He said he would use more language than that, but essentially he said don't be idiots, you're never gonna rent, you're gonna buy and I'm gonna show you how to do it. So he never gave us a dime, but he helped us buy our first house.
Speaker 3:Now, our first foray out in the field was we still want to live on the beach. So we found this two bedroom townhome condo like a block away from the beach and we could afford it. And we were thinking like typical young guys, man, we're gonna have parties all the time, there's girls everywhere, the beach life, you know. But we get home and call his dad and say, dad, you're gonna be so proud. We made an offer to place and I could hear him through the phone, socks, talking to him. Just I mean whoa, whoa, whoa, and he said get out of that deal, get out of that deal, what's the matter with you guys? But we got out of it before midnight. That was the rule If you rescind it before the other person responds, you're home free. So he then came help us find the right kind of property, and it was a four bedroom, two bathroom ranch in Virginia Beach and the guy that owned it was in the Navy. So we were able to assume his VA mortgage. If listener just wanna let you know, you can still assume these mortgages today. There's lots of them. You can still assume you have to qualify for them, right, but you can still assume them. So we assume the first mortgage. The owner had a second mortgage that we actually refinanced with our own second mortgage that socks dad signed for. And there was the third mortgage for the remaining equity, the remainder of his owner, of his equity in the property. And so we got this place with three mortgages. And then we rented out the other two bedrooms to two other guys who's combined rent paid all but $50 a monthly outlay each. So Sok and I each had $50 out of pocket a month. We're living minutes from the beach. Four bedroom, two bathroom ranch had some great parties. We bought a.
Speaker 3:Well, here's where we screwed up Kevin. So his dad's telling us, you know, like at the closing table, pound in his chest, say you know, if you boys do what I tell you to do, you won't have to work for anybody else when you're 35 years old. Well, we'd just turned 23 and we did not listen. We went out and bought a boat. Then we bought a VW Westphalia van that towed the boat and that's. You know, all of our money we were saving was going out the window paying for gas and believing when you're on a boat, it's, you're gonna repair. I mean, the thing is always needing something, you know, but a 20 case that was. So.
Speaker 3:Mr DeMette was my first real mentor in the most important lesson he taught me. Stay with me for the rest of my life is, and that is, you know, you always buy the asset first that generates revenue, and then you can go buy the toy if you want, you know. So we kind of did that right. We didn't buy the boat till we bought the house first, but we should have bought another house. The point is you start as soon as you get the message and I'm speaking to you right now. If you, I don't care if you're 20 years old or 60 years old, it's never too late to start. The best time to start right now don't buy anything else until you acquire an income producing asset, generate some passive income, build up additional wealth. Then you can go out and buy the boat with that money. Okay, so that's what he taught me, that lesson today I've taught my children and I still live with that today. I've lived with that role daily, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I remember you telling that story on stage at one of the events, and that's what I also teach peoples Buying an appreciating asset to pay for a depreciating asset. So boat, car vacations, all that type of stuff is the right way to go, which is what I did with my daughter, and you know that story. So great, great lesson there, guys Appreciating assets will pay for your depreciating at fun assets. We'll call them right. Definitely definitely do that.
Speaker 2:Simple, not easy, simple, not easy. But you gotta get someone to teach you how to do it right, like your friend's father, who got you out of that deal and straightened you out and said, no, no, no, this is the deal you want. We wanna get a property where you're gonna have some other guys live there and pay for this property. I mean, he saved basically he saved your ass really well, right. So, guys, great lesson to learn from a mentor like that. So that was more of a I don't know. I'll call it an inadvertent mentor. Do you remember having a specific person that you classified as your mentor, that maybe you asked that person to be your mentor or they asked if they could mentor you?
Speaker 3:Oh, yeah, yeah. Guys, this was a great lesson. When you're investing, building businesses, anything that falls in the realm of being an entrepreneur you have to network, you have to associate with people. You know, when I was a child, I was actually very shy. It wasn't until in college I started coming out of my shyness, if you wanna call it that. But when I started investing, I belong to the local investor group. Back then was called Acre American Congress or real estate and I made some good contacts there. But here's the best thing I ever did. I mean, I love Acre, I love Real Estate Investors of America. But I joined a local apartment association. I actually didn't know what it was. I thought it was just everybody who owned apartments. Turns out it was everybody who managed apartments. That included owners, along with property managers.
Speaker 3:So I go to this dinner. I mean again, I walk in. I'm always. I don't like big crowds, I get nervous. I can speak on stage because I speak about something I'm passionate about and I just get in my zone. But in a social environment, kevin, I just I really do. I'm better with small groups of people. But in any case, I'm looking at this big room, hundreds of people, and in the corner I saw this one table and all the guys there had gray hair and I was like 35 years old and didn't have gray hair yet. But I thought, well, that looks comfortable. I think I'll sit with those old guys. They won't be mean to me or whatever Turns out, not only were they not mean to me, they were impressed that I came to sit with them, because most other people ignored them, because they hung around with themselves.
Speaker 3:But they will come to meet with each other once a quarter and have dinner and get the ketchup, share stories about the crazy tenants and the roof to blue way and the tornado and all this stuff. And, lo and behold, they all asked me you know what was I looking to do? What were my goals? And you know, did they? Did I need help? One guy invited me to play golf with him.
Speaker 3:But one guy in particular stood out and this is his real name Gerhard Fluefelder. He's since passed away. He was 72 years old and I said I want to buy 10 properties this next year. And he said I tell you what, young man, I've got a property I'm getting ready to sell over by the Bellevue library. You know I'm fixing it up. Why don't you come by on Saturday and I'll show you around and I get over there? Remember, this dude's 72 years old and he's still hauling refrigerator, but the stairs on the Dolly by himself, wow, you know. So I thought you talk about a work ethic.
Speaker 3:And this guy, it turns out, I found out after years of being with him he owned hundreds of units, but he's still going to evolve intimately with it with the management of his properties. So, in any case, in that next year he gave me more valuable advice and guidance. Hands on, he understood the valuable lesson that we all learn way more from doing than we ever do, from just reading a book. We can all read books and you need to read books. I've got over 3,000 books which you need to implement and when you can tag along with a guy that's twice your age, it has already accomplished what you want You're going to start accomplishing. Say yes, say yes. I don't care if he has you haul garbage out. You know which he did.
Speaker 3:By the way, you know I got involved with some pretty interesting remodeling projects, but I learned how to remodel right. They're right way. They remodel for rental, differently they remodel for flip. I learned how to handle tenants and, more importantly, I learned how to spot their really good properties. And all that because I hung around Garrahard Flutheel there for about a year With state friends. I saw him probably 10 years ago for the last time I saw him. At that point he was probably 82 years old or older, still in his 19 unit building still painting, where an old teacher is still painting. You know, it's amazing example. That was best most of it to wherever had been cost me a dime.
Speaker 2:You know. So, guys, if you really were listening, Gary got out of his comfort zone, right. So he shared with us how he walked in the room. He's, you know, he's not a big room type person and he went to a table, so that that got him out of his comfort zone. And one of the things that's an obstacle that I've seen over my years is people getting out of their own way. Right, and there's a, there's a phrase that my office people like to use Get comfortable being uncomfortable, right. And the problem is is a lot of folks don't want to get out of their comfort zone. They're scared to get out of their comfort zone.
Speaker 2:But again, looking back, connecting dots that's a major dot in your life, because that dot now transitioned into multiple directions. That helped you tremendously, all because you made a pretty much just in a moment's time, a decision of you saw a table of gentlemen Ray Herod, as you described like. I'm going to go over there, probably not even realizing what the future was getting ready to hold for you. You know what I mean, and so I share with people two things in life that we travel through life every single day, that every in my opinion, every day there's opportunity it's. The problem is we have to recognize it, and most times most people don't recognize an opportunity. But if you really were to sit back and reflect on a daily basis where you've been, who you talk to, I'm sure you have an opportunity of some sorts there opportunity to learn something, maybe opportunity to make some money, to make a connection, something. There's opportunity always, but then we have to take advantage of that opportunity. And so your story just described how you took advantage of someone who wanted to help you because, guys, trust me, I'm getting ready to be 62 and people come to me and I was having a conversation last night, another real estate investor he's about five years younger than me and he gave me a solid compliment that I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2:He says you know, you know, kj, I talk to you. Every time I talk to you, I learn something. Right, you can't help. But when you talk to somebody that's been on this planet 60 plus years, you're going to learn something. You're going to learn something from these people. There's going to be some level of wisdom or life lesson that you can learn, whether it's money, work, life, whatever it may be, you know.
Speaker 2:So, man, I highly encourage you guys, get comfortable being uncomfortable. For some of you guys out there that are shy right, I was shy as a young gentleman also. It's fun. It's actually fun to talk to people, right. Once you start talking to people and hearing their stories, what a blast it can be. But it can totally have life changing trajectories when we look back on them, and that particular one definitely sounds like it was for you. You learned so many things from one gentleman in a short amount of time. You're saying like in a year, year and a half, it wasn't like you it wasn't like 10 years to you know, learn a lifetime worth of lessons.
Speaker 2:You learned a lot from one gentleman in that short amount of time. Now I know you have kids, I have kids. Your kids are grown like mine. Share with me. I asked you your first question was how were you and your mom and dad sat you down? But do you remember because you've done, you know very well for yourself in life how old were your kids when you started speaking to them about money?
Speaker 3:Yeah, they were seven. Both of them were seven different, different times. Andrew was seven, but Annie was seven, andrew was five. So in any case, when they were seven, that was my rule, my internal rule, that I would start talking about money and in showing them, like when I would pay bills, I would show them the checking account. I'd go on the computer online, show them the checkbook so you see how the checkbook matches the online.
Speaker 3:Now I want you to see the money coming in and I want you to see the money coming out. You see what it takes to actually just live you, just having your monthly expenses. I wanted to learn that. I wanted to see that first that money isn't free People who live in a house and grow on trees, and those expenses are coming in and they have to be paid. You know, not just because it's you owe the electric company money, but it's the right thing to do. It's teaching. You have to be responsible and you had to. I always paid.
Speaker 3:You know the way I always operated, kevin is, I always took care of debt first. You know and I know it sounds some people say, well, why wouldn't you take care of yourself first? Well, technically I was, you know, because at an early age I was debt free very early years. People in a. I tell you what life is way more pleasant when you don't have a mountain of debt. I've had that my whole life. Now, like Kevin, follow Kevin's teachings, because you can use that constructively and responsibly to build a massive mountain of wealth. But if you're not responsible and use it irresponsibly, it can erode your wealth very quickly.
Speaker 3:So back to Annie and Andrew. Well, the best thing is ever did when Annie was 10 and Andrew was eight is I bought cash flow for kids and I got him into. The next wave of things is what about investing? You know what about the stock market, bonds, mutual funds, real estate, gold, silver, things like that. And, oddly enough, one of the neighbors kids actually did better than my kids Get that game. She was a, she was a real gem, you know, but that. So the first part was showing them money coming in, money coming out, what it's like as an adult. And the second part was you know, there's more to life than just working and making a living. You, you have to invest in multiple types of assets and that's where the cash flow came in, you know.
Speaker 2:What? What would you say to a parent listening out there who's got kids at you know, somewhere between five and 10, let's just say, or even older if they haven't spoken with money that obviously, when you opened up the computer and showing your kids the numbers, these are real numbers, these are real bills. And I've talked to some parents and some parents are either embarrassed or don't believe their kids should know what financially is happening in the house, right? So that's one. Two what advice would you give those parents about overcoming that?
Speaker 3:Yeah, oh my gosh. So, so a perfect example here. You know I wanted my kids to follow in my footsteps to be an entrepreneur. Now, annie she Annie was the oldest one and she wanted to be a teacher like her mom and wouldn't have nothing to do with the ups and downs of being an entrepreneur and dealing with other people like tenants and all that. In fact, he didn't care about driving. She didn't care about getting a car when she was 16. She didn't even get her license till she was 19. She was at the end of her first one year in college and, on the other hand, he got the bug.
Speaker 3:So I had him starting to cut grass when he was 12. He worked at my properties. I would drop him off and pick him up and it was 16, I let him use my truck, right? I bought a new car to continue, so he built the business out of that. He actually ran a crew for me by the time it was 18. But here's the key here Andrew inherited a car when he was 13 years old. He's a 71 Z28 in really good condition. But he didn't want a white car, he wanted to paint a black and I said, okay, here's a good way for me to really implement a good lesson. So, andrew, I tell you what, whatever you save, I'll match you, dollar for dollar, till you get to what you need to paint the car. Well, darn it if you didn't save enough money. And that, by the way, the paint job wasn't just like a thousand, it was a $12,000 paint job.
Speaker 1:Woo.
Speaker 3:The classic car man. You gotta do it right. Right, and he'd saved up 6,000 and he got rewarded with a car. The paint job was probably worth more than the car at that point. But again, it's not that Andy didn't do anything right or wrong and Andrew did everything, right or wrong. They just did things differently. Now, andrew, andy, just bought her second home, which is bigger than any house I've ever had. It's a beautiful, it's a mansion, you know. It's huge and she's only 32 years old, you know. And Andrew is more frugal. You know, he had a middle-class, average room, average neighborhood, but he's got a very good, you know, asset to debt ratio and income to expense ratio. He lives well within his means, you know, and he's well. You take her to Times Square. Put away the credit cards, brother, cousin, yeah, so you feel that.
Speaker 2:So you feel at seven years old when you showed them those first lessons, that how they carried them through, because, again, I find parents most like I don't know why they feel that they shouldn't talk to. You know we classify them kids, but anybody in their 40s a kid to me, because that's the age of my oldest child, but anyway that you know, let the kid be a kid and have fun. But I think we're teaching when you do that. In my opinion, now, looking back and I have grandkids you're teaching a real responsibility, right that they don't become responsible young adults versus you set them down. You showed, hey, this is how our household runs, you know what I mean. These are the expenses and you know wherever you were sitting financially at that time nowhere near where you are today, but like guys, you know I'm not a multimillionaire but we're, you know we can afford to live here and put food on the table, type of thing. These are great lessons that I think are invaluable that parents and even if the parents are out there and you're living say paycheck to paycheck and get the kids to understand the value of doing the right things with money, so you don't have to live paycheck to paycheck.
Speaker 2:Now, there's circumstantial reasons why people live paycheck to paycheck. I get it, but in today's world this is 2023, that 63% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. Guys, that's damn near two thirds of Americans living that lifestyle, and it has nothing to do with how much money that you make, because 25% of that 63%, gary make over 200,000 a year. And so you would ask, if you talk to somebody who made, say, 40 or 50 grand a year, it wouldn't make sense to them. If you said, no, this gentleman over here makes 200 grand a year and he's living paycheck to paycheck, they wouldn't be able to fathom that. They're like how's that even possible? That's, you know, a lot of minds four times what I make. How can he live that? Because that person probably didn't get taught the lessons that your kids got taught early, right, or the lesson that you learned at five years old subconsciously and brought that through your life. So that's what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to get people to have a mindset shift, to learn how to think and act different with your time and money.
Speaker 2:So, like Gary explained, debt and I call debt an anchor on us. It's an anchor that keeps you down. It's very hard to stay afloat when you got an anchor on your ankle right. Take that anchor off and you can fly, and so get out of debt number one first. That's truly what's holding everybody back, and I can almost guarantee you everybody that's living paycheck to paycheck has some sort of anchor debt that's holding them down and making it difficult to get out of that. But there are ways, and you can go to my website and we talk all about that. Let's talk about your kid. You learned those lessons. You taught your kid how and I know you, though, personally I'm gonna ask you the question. I want you to tell the audience that how old were you when you started setting goals? How are you today in setting goals? How important is it to you and how do you do it? How do you track them?
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, I actually started setting goals when I was about eight years old, when I had some allowance saved up. I've already gotten permission to get a paper out. It was always lying when I got the paper out, but I figured out how much I could make and how much I was gonna save and how much I was gonna keep and so forth. And so I did that at an early age. And then when I got in the junior high, I redid my goals because I figured I wanna make it more money. Now, when I got in the high school, I was making a course more money and I really didn't have everything plotted out. How was gonna pay for my first car, how was gonna pay for college, everything. Life never turns out exactly the way you think it's going to. But the point is I had a plan, I had goals with a plan, so it gave me a roadmap to follow and I've never, ever gotten out of that habit. I still today. I mean, every year we do a strategic planning session, right, and sometimes I'll do it again another time of the year. Something dramatic happens, like the pandemic hit, or one time I broke my back in two places. Well, I've gonna reassess everything because it's a major, major impact. But the point is, in a minimum once a year, everybody needs to set up, have their vision, do a vision exercise, set their goals that's the line with the vision right Determine all the action steps necessary to take and then formally to plan. It drives the actions through to the achievement of the goals that are aligned with the vision. So it's a four part process. And people that don't do that at minimum once a year, I'm telling you you're short changing yourself. You are capable of far more than you believe you are. I'm telling you. I know for a fact, I'm living proof. When you start setting goals and achieving them, it tells your brain if I set goals, I achieve them and I succeed and I get more right, so I'm gonna set bigger goals. Then I'm gonna set bigger goals Vitally important. You have to be realistic about it, right? You gotta be practical. The other benefit is it sort of forces you to be disciplined. You know I can't make you do these things, guys, but I can tell you if you do do them, you're gonna get far more out of whatever years you're making in your life than if you did not have goals.
Speaker 3:Okay, on kids, getting an answer back to the prior question for the parents. You don't need to talk to your kids, by the way, about finances, even if it's bad, like for a pandemic kid or when I broke my back. I mean I was a major, I was usually, thankfully, I had a lot of assets with a lot of properties, but one of my kids. To see real life right, you gotta be realistic with your kids so that they can set realistic expectations. But also it gives them confidence to know that if they work right and they set their goals and work to their goals, they can have what they want. Teach them that early. So sorry, kevin, to go back on that.
Speaker 2:No, no, listen, they're all great, fabulous lessons that you were talking to the folks about and realizing. Though I want and I have an image over here in my office that you know I don't like people that get confused with dreams versus goals, because everybody has dreams, right, but a goal is a clear written plan and the fact that you must have a clear written plan if you wanna reach the goal, because if you don't have a clear written plan for said goal, it's not a goal, it's a dream, and not that I'm knocking dreams. Definitely dream. We should all dream dream big, the bigger your dream great, and now create a goal and create an action plan for your goal. You know, harvard did a study back in 1980 about this and showed how the graduating class of 79 actually, who had clear written goals after graduating and only 3% of the class did, and so 10 years later they followed up and that 3% of the class was earning 10 times more money than the other 97% of the kids because they had clear written goals. It's just that important, and that's lesson number two in my program.
Speaker 2:We have to know where we're going, and I think the reason people are living paycheck, the paycheck struggle with money. They don't know where they're going right and again connecting the dots, going backwards. You now you can see your dots, but, guys, we can make that change at any point in our life. You could be 18, 30, 50, whatever age you wanna be. Start that habit and, like Gary says, it becomes a habit, and he does it and I do it annually too, and I do with my kids, and we sit down, you know, map out your like we'll do it in January, what's your 2024 goals? I've already talked to them like, start thinking about it. And I have them write it out, and I have, and I go find some real special paper, make it look nice and fancy, and I make them put them on the refrigerators. Because you have to look at it in writing on a regular basis, because I know a lot of folks that say, yeah, I write them down and then they never look back at what they wrote. And you have to look at these things on a regular basis in order to make it happen and make those things happen, you know. So, man, that's an awesome lesson that you just shared with everybody.
Speaker 2:So one of the things that folks often, I think, misunderstand and I don't like using this word but it's out there misunderstand retirement Meaning. I know a lot of folks because they got whatever a KA job and that job has a 401K, and they believe that's my retirement, my 401K is my retirement. Now I know you and I both know the 401K. One was never designed to be your retirement. It was designed to be one leg of a three-legged stool, basically.
Speaker 2:But the reality is in today's world not a lot of people have. Most people will never have enough money in that account to actually retire with. Some people can build maybe a decent little you know chunk of money there, but most don't. So I've, you know, with Gary and some of the other companies that I used to go out on the road with, have been privy to see the inner financials of a lot of folks who have had career jobs, who have do not have even six figures in a 401K. So in your life, how old were you? My question is, how old were you when you thought about retirement and took some sort of action to make sure that you would have some sort of financial retirement that you planned out?
Speaker 3:Yeah, oh my gosh. My first yeah, oh my gosh. My first, yeah job where I had the opportunity to save in a 401k was with Sperry Corporation. So I took advantage of their 401k and at first I thought, well, I'll just put it like 1% and what the heck? I'm like 23 years old or something. And then I talked to one of the older guys and he said look, they're going to match you dollar for dollar. He said to Sixpunty. He said put it in 6% because you automatically double your money while not even doing it, without even investing it. And then they invest the total amount. He said you put in. He said I promise you you'll be glad.
Speaker 3:So what I did, kevin? I wrote one of my own accounting books from college and had one of those tables in the back. It showed you know, upper left hand corner, if you start off with a specific investment amount and you have periodic payments every month for the next 30 years, and it would show you how much you made each month, each year excuse me, for 30 years depending on your rate of return. I thought it out think, well, if I get 10% return for 30 years, I'm going to have $10 million when I'm 65 years old. So I said, yeah, I'll do the 6%. And I started doing that and my next job was my final corporate job.
Speaker 3:I retired when I was 40, was with PNC Bank and same thing there had that 401k, built that up and started taking advantage of everything. I mean I was investing in mutual funds, real estate, minakagu because I went out and I realized the power of compounding. It'll change you. It'll change you for the better for the rest of your life if you allow that power to work on your behalf. If you don't take advantage of it, you're unfortunately going to be left behind. But it's a factor of time, the rate of return and how much you put into it those three factors. So you might as well maximize what you've got going on. I know people who approve the 401k's and I see why. I understand money. But in the early days it was the right thing to do.
Speaker 2:Right, right, excellent. So, because I know a lot of folks out there. But again, you didn't realize solely on this 401k, for later you understood compounding, the rule of 72. And that's one of my major lessons that I love to teach people, because you and I both know once you truly understand it and it's not a difficult rule to understand. But understanding how compounding works, guys, is really going to help you in your lifetime when you're purchasing or selling anything, because understanding the rate of return or the rate that you pay, you're going to make different types of decisions.
Speaker 2:Right, credit cards. Right, people who don't have good credit are paying 18, 20 plus percent on that. What does that really mean? Most folks don't even know what that means. When you're like paying, you know 18 percent on the cards. Like guys, you don't realize this bank's making their money back in less than three years. You know it's all just simple math, but truly understanding compounding will change you for the better, because you'll make better decisions at the end of the day. Right, great lesson there.
Speaker 2:So and you had mentioned so corporate job for you, retirement was at 40, which is extremely young, very rare in the one less than 1 percentile of folks who go out there and trade time for money, can retire at that age Because Gary did all the right things with his time and his money right. So some great valuable lessons we're learning here today from Gary. As I said earlier when we started, man, if we could replicate some of the things that Gary has done in his life. That's why I was so excited about getting Gary on the podcast today, because I've known Gary for a few years now and I know most of his story not all of his story and and wow, how powerful these lessons are that we're giving you.
Speaker 2:So I kind of want to wrap this up with a question that I think I know the answer to. But even as well as you have done in your career, in your life, what is the one thing you would, looking back, you would tell your 20 year old self? Because, even though you did a lot of great things right Doing your life and but listen, I'm sure there are some there's ups and downs in life and there's some probably sad stories you could share, but I, you know everybody likes to play Monday morning quarterback 2020 hindsight, and so I think, when I ask this question to most folks is because, if we can listen to a man who's a little over 60 that here's what he would have done different, and he already did most of the things in life very well. How much better could you be if you're on this podcast and you're under 30 years old? So what would you, gary, looking back, knowing what you've gone through, your knowledge today, tell 20 year old Gary Wilson?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I was way too conservative, and I don't mean like politically, but but as far as me being willing to put myself out there and seize opportunities, I said I said no far too many times. It's not, it's not bad to say no when it's when it's the right thing to do, but there are lots of times I should have said yes, and that's that's the big lesson here is, when opportunity comes knocking, say yes and for like a Richard Branson has it perfectly in a quote. He said somebody asked me an interview. You know what's the secret to success? He said you know what? At an early age I started spring. Yes, your opportunity Cause I knew if I said yes to opportunity, I would get the opportunity and then I would figure out how to make it work.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, which is a great quote by him.
Speaker 2:Always say yes and figure it out. Just say no because you don't know. If someone says you know they want you to do XYZ, whatever it is, whatever this opportunity is, say yes and figure it out. Grant Cardone, you know, pushes this real hard. There's a bunch of other wealthy people out there that will tell you that most of their success is they didn't try to learn it first and then go make money at it. They got the opportunity first and said you know what I'm going to figure this out? And, guys, for a lot of times it's not even you really figuring it out. You have to find somebody that can sometimes figure it out for you. You know what I mean. But don't let an opportunity pass.
Speaker 2:So great great answer there. Because there are so many people that are conservative and then we could say conservative or you're shy, you didn't want to bother somebody. You didn't want to. I mean you can fill in the blank on the reasons why people don't take opportunities that are in front of them. You know, at the excuses. Just fill in the blank. There's dozens of them.
Speaker 2:And so great great advice that you would tell your 20 year old self that we can share with everybody. And for those of you out there, I'm sure most people can reflect right now in life and almost think that same exact thought man, why, why didn't I say yes? Why didn't I take advantage of that last thing? Because sometimes you didn't say yes and somebody and you know the person next to you said they said yes and then you went on to watch them have success and that could have been you in those shoes, right? So great advice, especially, again as I think about it, for folks that are, you know, if you're 30 years or younger listening to this, I don't know that there could be better advice than that right, have your goals, set your goals, write them down extremely important. I just think that, looking back at all these great lessons that we just heard Gary talk through invaluable, just maybe a podcast, guys that you're going to need to listen to more than once to maybe even three times there were so many great nuggets in there, as I'll call them that will help you with your money and your life and not stress, because we know people live paycheck to paycheck. Stress, anxiety, people get sick, people do silly things. You know which is, which is not good. We want to live life on our terms and we want to have fun at it. So, gary, I want to thank you for coming out today. Awesome Thank you. And you, like I said great, great, great message to the folks for you guys out there listening.
Speaker 2:Hey, do me a favor If you haven't subscribed on the YouTube channel yet, please do that on the podcast. Follow me. We're getting these episodes out as fast as we can, so until then, we'll see you guys on the next one. Hey, everybody, hope you enjoyed that episode. I really enjoyed making all these episodes for you. Remember, we're just having conversations with people's journey with money and the things they did right with it, the things that did wrong with it, and how, how did they really come about getting their mindset with money. So every episode is different. We all have a good takeaway from them. So do me a favor, hit them like button, smash the like button and subscribe to my channel, because every episode that I do is going to be different, as all our journeys are different. So you guys, take care and we'll talk to you next week.